We told you it was shit
But it's still infested with the ribbon, can you get rid of that next please.
Big changes to "key" parts of Windows 8 are coming after Microsoft admitted it “could and should have done more” on its big answer to Apple’s iOS for tablets. “Key aspects” of Windows 8 will be changed, head of marketing and finance for Microsoft’s Windows group Tami Reller has told the Financial Times (log-in needed). Reller …
The real question is: "Why can't we have both ribbon AND traditional menus?"
Given that there are different types of users and strong feelings on both sides, why do Microsoft (and Canonical -- sadly, Linux isn't free of this silliness either) feel that it must be "their way or the highway"?
And, as long as we're bitching, go ahead and move the "show desktop" button from the far left (XP) to the far right (Win7), if you feel the aesthetics of your new OS demand it, but for heaven's sake, make it so I can move it back to where it has been for the past umpty-ump years I have been using XP, if that's what I want to do!
Honestly, this change of UI for the sake of change, with no possibility of user configuration is beginning to annoy me!
> Honestly, this change of UI for the sake of change, with no possibility of user configuration is beginning to annoy me!
Nowadays its fairly well established amongst usability experts that having configuration settings for everything results in a poor and fragmented user experience. I've seen and used plenty of software where lazy developers couldn't decide what approach to take with their UI and so just did both and added a setting to change between the two - good UI developers identify which approach is best and focus all of their efforts on making sure that apprach works well.
You also have increased training and support costs to consider whenever you have two approaches to the same operation.
"good UI developers identify which approach is best"
Best for whom?
In my experience, existing users want new features to fit with the current style, new users don't know better.
Over time, existing users may come to prefer new styles (I actually prefer 2007's ribbon to 2003's menu system now, mostly because of the visual cues, though I still have to hunt for some things) but they don't want to be forced to learn a whole new "user experience paradigm" (that's probably going to change in the next release) just to continue doing what they've always done.
I think this fits perfectly with TIFKAM, which I've disabled on my only Win8 box as much as I could, and have never felt like I'm missing out on something.
"Best for whom?"
Upvoted just because that sentence. With a user base counting in the hundreds of millions, it is incredibly unlikely, if not downright impossible, to find some default that makes everyone happy. Saying that the majority of users are happy with a change means leaving a few tens of millions of users unsatisfied. Which is not acceptable.
Forcing a UI change for the sake of forcing it is pointless. Say you have a setting that makes 80% of Windows users happy, but irritates 20% of them. With a user base of 300MM users, that means 60 million people. Now imagine the entire UK population, about 63MM people, forced to drive in the right side of the road just because that makes the majority of drivers in the rest of the world happy. Extreme example, I know, but one that is quite appropriate.
@Peter Simpson 1 "Why can't we have both ribbon AND traditional menus?"
Because then every feature has to be added in both places, training manuals have to incorporate both methods and the product test matrix expands exponentially. And almost nobody chooses anything but the default setup.
Sorry to disagree, but most modern GUI design tools allow you to create one action (like Save As...), attach it to a handler and then connect this same action to a menu item, a toolbar icon, a ribbon icon, etc. as much as you like. Change the action features in the program and it automatically propagates to all the linked items. You can also easily show or hide all the linked items. No muss, no fuss and no expanded test matrix.
@Peter Simpson
> Given that there are different types of users and strong feelings on both sides, why do Microsoft (and Canonical -- sadly, Linux isn't free of this silliness either) feel that it must be "their way or the highway"?
The trouble is, I think, that any user configuration option can double the amount of testing that needs to be done in order for it to be considered rigorous.
So for something like KDE3.5, where rigorous testing was considered secondary to power and functionality, and bugs were fixed on an "as soon as someone moans about it" basis, we could have a gazillion options, so long as we had the sense to change them back when they broke something.
But now, where software is released by companies interested in profit margins and how many salaried software testers they can get away with laying off, we no longer have user configuration and this is a shame.
It might also be why Apple is doing so well - They pick the optimal configuration for the majority of users and then make it completely inflexible. With Apple it really is their way or the highway, even if it for you it is a good way.
Yeah I've come to feel MS were right and we were all wrong on the Ribbon front... cue downvotes...
Two years in and I still don't really understand it. Up until then I'd managed GUIs from various DOS shells through all Windows reincarnations, Mac OS, KDE, Gnome and countless phones. I guess it's just me.
"[...] loads of stuff that used to be buried in menus like show hidden files and show file extensions are now one click actions on the ribbon."
Those are usually one-off things needed on creating a new user. The default of hiding extensions always seems to confuse people when applications use a common base name with different extensions. Deciphering a filename's accompanying icon is not as easy as learning a few standard extensions.
Interestingly, I've been able to work with Office 2011 w/o problems.
Why? Because the OSX version kept the menus, so I don't have to search the Ribbon for stuff that isn't obvious. I still haven't found how to merge cells in Excel, that I do from the menu. Among other features that are nigh impossible to find in the awful Ribbon. But hey, at least the OSX Ribbon version isn't as huge as the Windows counterpart; it is small enough to not be a nuisance.
"So cluttering the UI with options that I set once per install of the OS is supposed to be an improvement?"
Nope.. It's an excuse.
It's t here, it's different to the old version, so it is an improvement.
They have to figure out something that they can use to justify ribbonising stuff, so they are trying desperately to come up with stuff they can claim is better, but is really just different.
Kind of like when Vista was being criticised, and some tame reviewer did a "top ten reasons to change to Vista" list. One of which was a free MahJong game.
Well having border padding in the UI as opposed to be needed to be changed by using regedit is desirable for me. (I would prefer it if they just made it the default).
The fact you need to be using the US locale to install the RSAT properly is really annoying as well. (Especially if you have a retail copy with the en-gb locale). I don't see why they cannot offer it from Windows Update.
It could be them wanting to make using Hyperv Server 2012 as much as a pita as possible. (Or just them being stupid).
Is now buried in tabs.
Show file extensions is two clicks, you have the select the view tab first. Assuming you know what tab it's on and don't have to go hunting for it.
For something like Office where there are lots of settings the ribbon is no better then the old system of a tool bar for stuff you use all the time, and menus for stuff you only use once in a while. And the ribbon uses up way to much vertical space on a typical wide screen laptops crappy screen.
With Windows 7 you had every program asking to create a shortcut on your desktop. With Windows 8 you get a whole bunch of crap on your "start screen". I used to laugh at people who had a desktop packed full of shortcuts, now that's how it's supposed to work, except now you have to scroll to see them all. No thanks.
Full screen not-metro apps are fine for your phone, I don't want them on my full size computer screen.
- Get rid of the not-metro start screen with all the invisible charm bar junk. (or at least make it an option you can turn off). Give me the start menu back (but you can keep the auto arrange feature.
- Let me run not-metro apps in a window if I find any that are of any use.
the problem is (like most things) the ribbon, toolbar and menu wont suit everyone for everything. So why couldnt they leave the CHOICE in? It isnt hard to do - look at the plethora of various companies toting plugins to work around it.
It is the lack of choice when moving forwards that pisses people off the most. If you dont like ribbon then old fashioned menus will do. Need a prettier GUI? Ribbon is for you.
I wonder how many people on rolling software assurance cashed in at windows 7 because of the clusterfuck. so sure, they sold many copies but corporations wont be upgrading for a while...
You could just hover over the icon and see what it does, in your own language. And as far as I remember there is a key-press that actually shows all of the text at once.
Then the rest of the time the icons actually save space. Dunno, doesn't seem all that crazy to me.
TIFKAM's lack of integration into the rest of windows though... stupid.
Paris because she is integrated into many functions.
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And Apple weren't the first. Michael Robertson's Linspire was the first to have an app store in the form we are used to seeing today. That was an evolution from apt-get and other similar package management systems on linux and bsd family operating systems. It wasn't even the first app store for OSX, as App Bodega was available before the Apple App Store, also there are a few bsd ports based package management systems available.
I think the main key difference between Apple's app store for OSX and the Windows Marketplace is that you can get actual proper desktop applications in the Apple, whereas on the Windows Marketplace, you can only get full screen apps that seem to be mostly website bookmarks.
Frankly shut down should just be a power switch like it used to be... I hate all this stupid waiting when I want to stop the machine... it should start and stop instantly - and I do mean instantly - if it can't it Bulmer should put his not inconsiderable weight behind making the engineers fix that problem.
Why, did the users no longer know how to shut down?
Er...no. They didn't, actually. Only last week I had to Google to find out how to restart a Windows 2012 server from an RDC connection. And it's not obvious when you're at a console even for a workstation. Several of our VMs now have shortcuts to 'shutdown -r' or whatever on the desktop.
I've put Classic Desktop on the VMs I use most often.
To be fair the few users I know don't have huge problems with Metro. What concerns me is that IT staff and developers hate it and avoid it. That could be storing up problems for the future if the people writing for the platform and the people supporting it rarely use it and dislike it.
Upvoted because, yes, that is annoying!
But it's not limited to a single OS - that is more limited to the admin settings for the machines. We have a selection of servers here and some can be restarted normally, where as others have to be restarted using the shutdown -r command. And yes it is annoying. When I VPN from home to the office I also loose the ability to simply restart the workstation and need that command.
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They didn't put a touch screen interface on a server, they put the standard interface for the OS on the server. Then they told you not to use the GUI, not to even install it, unless you absolutely have to.
The sooner people stop getting hung up about the fact that the UI can be used by a touch screen as well as a keyboard/mouse the better. All recent GUIs have had some ability to be used as a touch interface, it's just that this is a little less rubbish at it than the other ones at it.
Oh, "IT Bunker" never heard that one before, I presume you mean "Computer Suite" or "Datacentre"?
There are at least three ways to do it... can't be that hard.
Try redirecting your keyboard commands to your remote sessions for a start.
"What concerns me is that IT staff and developers hate it and avoid it. That could be storing up problems for the future if the people writing for the platform and the people supporting it rarely use it and dislike it."
What is that comment based on?
I can understand the frustration with Windows 8, but there is nothing wrong with server 2012 compared with 2008 R2 / 2003. It has been generally well received in the IT community and I can say definitely at our workplace.
Just use the same keyboard shortcuts that've been around since Windows 95 - click the task bar, then use Alt-F4. It brings up a menu of restart/shutdown/sign out/switch user etc.
This works in an RDP session and when you are at the PC/Server
If you work in IT, and can't figure this out, are you in the right job?
Open source is all very well IF it (a) works, (b) does what you want.
In my experience (a) is at best that it works significantly less well than Microsoft - and the 'support' from Microsoft has got worse over the years but is still not as bad as the support you get from the 'community' (who by and large seem to believe you are stupid for asking, and even more stupid for not knowing without asking). (b) In many cases the open source stuff doesn't do what I want - sometimes yes, but really not that often.
Now, some of this comes from a particularly poor experience when installing linux and having it tell me that the graphics monitor that had done graphics for the last 10 years wasn't capable, and the ensuing battle to try and get it all to work - a battle that I lost and gave up on after several months of wasted time and effort, but the fact is that it NEEDS to just work out of the box before the mainstream will be bothered.
Struggling at work is what I am paid to do, when I get home I want my computer to work as the tool it is, rather like the spanners in my toolbox just work.
Open source is all very well IF it (a) works, (b) does what you want.
(c) continues to be developed.
It's okay for geeks and people that like to get their hands dirty but not so much for unsupported end users. Off the shelf proprietary stuff might not have all the bells and whistles and might be bloated but at least most of the time it works and you can usually find help for it very easily. It's the difference between a Ferrari and a Ford. The former is technically superior, has better performance and is more 'fun' to use but no-one would choose it as a family car.
Of course that analogy stumbles a bit on price but given the support costs of OS the gap may not be as large as some might like to think. Choose Open Source by all means but do so with your eyes open. It isn't always a panacea.
We need a 'Careful now' icon. In the meantime that's me getting a placard out of my coat :)
I think a lot of people have a world view of opensource that is a decade old.
I'm my last 2 jobs I have architectured platforms that were open source that were worlds ahead of equivalent proprietary solution and that's not including RHEL that we use for all our servers.
I will add the disclaimer that I had a significant budget and was happy to pay for support contracts to go with the open source software.
Support for open source product X was about 3/4 the support cost of the proprietary software onto of the huge initial purchase price (don't even get me started on licencing confusion for load balancing VM clusters containing cpus with different thread counts and GHz)
If you simply go to sourceforge and download any random project and expect community support equivalent to what you get throwing lots of £££ around then you will probably be disappointed. However if you do your due diligence and select well established projects backed by companies that offer paid support you will generally come out on top.
However if you do your due diligence and select well established projects backed by companies that offer paid support you will generally come out on top.
I'd agree with that but if you're going to rely on a third party company to provide the software and the support it's not much different to proprietary software.
only if you discount
A) the price
b) the lack of vendor lock in
c) the ability to download/compile/deploy the app ourselves from its source(we usually do that)
d) the ability to move support in house if we want to go to the effort.
e)no forced upgrade cycle (tired of raising a support ticket with IBM only to be told the bug is fixed in the next version and wont be ported back to the version we are using)
f)the ability and general availability of tools to allow you migrate your data to a different platform (related to point b i guess)
f) the ability to add features to the main codebase ourselves (granted, sometimes this does conflict with support agreements)
Its not always the right way to go. Its something you have to evaluate on its merits but drawing parallels from paid support on a freely available opensource product and closed source purchase/support is pretty tenuous
@NinjasFTW "no forced upgrade cycle (tired of raising a support ticket with IBM only to be told the bug is fixed in the next version and wont be ported back to the version we are using)"
Seriously? If you think that never happens with FOSS software, then I can only assume you've never actually used any of it at all, because "you need the latest build" is pretty much the modus operandi of every FOSS project going.
@NinjasFTW:
"I think a lot of people have a world view of opensource that is a decade old."
That's because - from what I see here at least - we seldom get anybody on here posting any decent explanation of why open source is so great - normally it's a few cursory lines to justify a massive "let's slag off Microsoft" rant.
we seldom get anybody on here posting any decent explanation of why open source is so great.
Indeed. Perhaps some of those downvoting my last comment would care to stick their heads above the parapet and explain what the difference is between buying an Open Source solution from a third company and paying them for support and proprietary software.
Note: I was addressing a specific comment here. Of course being open means there are alternative support avenues but I replied to someone talking about handing all that off to a third party. If we can leave out the snide comments for a moment - what is the difference between me paying for support from Microsoft and me paying for support from Joe Soap? From my POV it's the same thing. I'm trusting someone else to sort out my problems. Either Joe can sort it out for me (in which case he's just a smaller version of MS) or else he palms the problems off onto the community.
You are just as wrong as Eadon, unless you'd like to show me where the source code is for your corporate code that you have this "considerable budget" for?
The component parts might be open source initially but the solution (which is Microsoft sells) is very much closed source.
You still pay for support for each of the parts / the developed bit by a third party, and the third party developed bits are still not open source because the internet does not have them listed on a public repo like github.
This is the same solution as buying several off the shelf Microsoft products and plugging them in to each other.
The only difference is that instead of your product supplier and your support company being the same the chances are they are various companies.
People really need to get a grip on what "open source" really means ... SHOW ME THE SOURCE CODE FOR YOUR SOLUTION THEN IT'S OPEN SOURCE!
Wow, way to reinforce my point of the view of OpenSource is a decade old!
to be honest I have no idea what your talking about.
I never said we created the corporate code, we use pre-existing projects as well as quite a few Apache products (many of them supported by RedHat directly)
How about having a browse of https://github.com/apache. All the code for various projects is there to download and use at your leisure.
We also use some open source identity management products that you can download the full source code directly from http://forgerock.org/openam.html. Its not on a public github server though so i'm not sure it stands up to your definition of OpenSource == Github !!!!
We are currently looking to migrate some of our Oracle database to PostgreSQL (I can't be bothered to pull the source links, you do it if you want to froth at the mouth some more)
Are you saying that if the source code for a project is not in github then its not opensource or that if there is a single proprietary component that talks to other open source components over standard communication channels then its not open source?
Yes you pay for support for each part, again wtf are you talking about?
I can agree that it means we have multiple support vendors for a solution as you put it. Its not currently caused us any problems but I could see that it may not be appealing to everyone.
Open source is basically useless unless it is actively developed by a steady core of programmers that stay with it for long times. Anyone who has worked on a living software project, even a commercial one where coding guidelines, commenting and documentation can be enforced knows that reading code is more complicated than writing it (Joel on Software had an article about it). And within a company there is a decend chance the author is still there or did a decend transfer job. With OSS he might. Or he just picked up and left.
Used to program in a "pool" software developed by a group of companies with the same special needs and not a concurrency situation back in the 80s/90s. We had strict guidelines, used a very long term stable (15+ years) system in almost identical configurations and still we arranged regular trips and meetings to "talk about details". Now do the same over mail/chat with people who speak a different native language, are not held to well-defined and enforced standards in programming and testing(1) and more diverse systems...
There is a reason the high quality OSS is
Company backed
Typically dual licenced and typically not using the full GPL (Apache is more common)
Often part of a "value added" commercial package
The backing company pays the core dev team and enforces standards. If the company pulls out - the software dies.
(1) Our software needed government certification before we could use it in production - human lives depended on (and where saved by) it
@Dave 15
"but the fact is that it NEEDS to just work out of the box before the mainstream will be bothered."
Tada! Windows type answer coming up. All you need to do is upgrade your hardware. If only you'd had a modern linux with a dvi card and a dvi monitor it'd have booted up in max resolution.
Not very useful though is it?
You mean "Microsoft forced to shoehorn features that customers want". Whether it is 'old' or not is irrelevant, whether people want it or not is surely be more important. And as for, it being because they are 'frightened of change' - yeah, that must be the reason.
Now - about that f**king ribbon (that I am apparently 'frightened' of) ...can we at least have a option to disable it please.
Indeed. MS appears to be having a midlife crisis -> no longer considered the darling of the Tech Sector or Wall St., MS is trying to 'reinvent' itself or 'innovate' to capture some of the attention it craves. It's like a teenage girl that is now 28, has fewer suitors, and is falling apart because she defines herself by how many men are waiting upon her. Hence the urge to do something new for the sake of doing something; MS feels an urge to change, but is unrealistic as to what needs to change, if anything. Who does MS listen to? Why, it's the same group of people ("the beautiful people") who would have been popular in high school; all looks, no substance, and of course the Tech Sector, aka the people who need to accomplish something for a living, would have such a vocal reaction.
I get along fine without it, but if it comes back ill use it ha!
That's what I thought. Then I installed one of those third-party start-button mods only to find I never actually use it. I've got into the habit of launching and controlling things the W8 way and, frankly, prefer it. Didn't think I'd say that at the time...
Microsoft are forced to shoehorn old features into new versions because some people are so frightened of change.
Hardly. There is a huge difference between a change which actually enhances the whole workflow and a change which got implemented because of the change. That is the nature of this problem here.
Microsoft opted to change the desktop in such ways that it would be fully optimized for touch screens, apparently not (willing to?) realizing that when it comes to a non-touchable environment the change is actually a huge setback when it comes to functionality. That is the main issue.
Metro is a very solid environment which is in my opinion well designed when looking at mobile computing. But the problem is that it doesn't provide the same functionality as the start menu in Windows 7 provides. Think about jump lists (to quickly start a recently used file) or the "run as administrator" options. Those have become extremely awkward in Windows 8.
I know many people didn't use the start menu to its full potential but only to blindly click stuff to, well, start it. These are often the same kinds of people who would easily fill their entire desktop with icons so that they could quickly start a program.
But the problem is that there are also plenty of people who do know how to use the start menu to its full potential. And judging from the very weak acceptance of Windows 8 it's my believe that those form the majority.
Don't treat a desktop as a mobile environment and don't treat a mobile environment as a desktop. That's the main problem at hand here. First Microsoft went one way (a start menu on the iPaq PDA for example) which was often extremely awkward, now they're merely going the other way around.
Just checked the May stats for a couple of my sites.
On one, out of 1595 windows hits, 848 from Win7, 573 from XP, 112 from Vista, 43 from Win 2003 and 8 from WIndows (unknown version)
On the other, out of 8051 windows hits, 7840 from Win7, 190 from XP and 21 from Vista
To answer the question... not many!!!
Not even the most desperate Windows 8 booster can claim that Win8 has been any kind of stimulus to the market. Windows 8 isn't helping to sell PCs, and it certainly isn't helping to sell Windows tablets, or Windows Phones.
Microsoft could survive this kind of 'wet firecracker' release back when it really did have the world by the throat. But today, it's under the gun. PC sales are sliding, and companies like Apple are picking up the slack. At this point, 'good enough' just isn't good enough.
Microsoft really needed to 'hit one out of the park' with Win8. Instead, it has failed to motivate droves of PC upgraders, failed to carve out a significant niche in mobile devices.... while at the same time alienating corporate customers and droves of die-hard fans. Just how much more epic could the fail have been?
We'll see again in January 2014. The big companies basically missed the 2012 holliday season and PC sales are down across the board. They will hit the 2013 one perfectly. And with hardware/software combinations that makes iOS/Android tablet toys look like a Model-T next to a current gen Mondeo or Mercedes
looking deeper, if the smart-phone user interface is un-acceptable then it's possible the PC ain't dead after all
we face a nasty backlog of badly written software that only runs on a specific version of an o/s which is making it difficult to dump XP . and Win8 ain't gonna help none .
in a very real sense an o/s IS a "hardware abstraction layer" . the o/s honors the system calls that an app needs in order to "do its thing"
i think Linux has made usable progress on this issue in Torvalds First Rule of kernel coding: don't break the system calls.
hopefully much of the obsoleted software can be ported to Linux.
When I get into work I boot windows 8, the stupid metro thing pops up, I hit escape and I'm in the desktop. From there it's pretty much 7, all the things I use every day are docked to the bar at the bottom of the screen just like 7. From a user perspective Metro is shit, but it's not exactly getting in the way. I don't really see what all the moaning's about...
IT guys can't deal with change.
They'll tell you that they can deal with change, but "this change is just for the sake of change" or some such weasel words.
Here is a classic example: At my last place of work the UNIX team used to tell anyone who'd listen that Linux was the best thing since sliced bread. I got to listen a lot, because I worked in storage, so directly dealt with them. The company announced that henceforth they would not strategically deploy any proprietary UNIX, everything would be virtualised Linux on VMware. The UNIX team then started slagging off Linux because "it can't do x, y, z" "it's not scalable like proper UNIX", literally everything that you could imagine, some utterly piss-poor arguments, rather than deal with the fact that Linux is perfectly placed to take over from Big Iron UNIX.
I've seen this time and time again, the people who do it stay in their place bitching away, those who don't become more senior and start making decisions rather than reacting to them.
Nobody minds change. If you don't, you can't work in IT.
The fact is that you have to justify that change. Probably the Linux comments were right. But the argument there really is "it's too expensive to support all this UNIX stuff when we can get similar performance from Linux". Of course people find reasons to keep their jobs, that's not the focus. The focus is why they think that a bigger, more serious, pay-for system is better - either they don't have reasons, or the reasons will become clear when someone tries to chase up why they can't fix a problem / hire an engineer / find someone to support the system, etc.
I deployed Windows 8 at my workplace because we needed to move off XP. Fact is, only Windows 7 was a real contender for all those years but in terms of what we got back - it didn't really justify it. The licensing scheme we were on was an ancient educational one and didn't count towards anything any more (so there was no "free" upgrade to whatever we wanted). Hence we stayed on XP until 7 was stable and proven. We eventually deployed on 8, because of various reasons out of my hands but also because it basically *is* 7 with knobs on, and we had ways to turn those knobs off (if we didn't, we've have deployed 7 this year).
Fact is, I now have less working. Sure, it's old stuff that nobody cares about, but the time spent on the upgrade did little more than break software and get us into the 21st Century. We didn't gain anything we didn't really have before (hell, we were using GhostCast and the equivalent WDS setup we're forced to use now is actually MUCH slower and less intuitive and - hell - someone please tell me why I have to load up every 32-bit image into a 32-bit copy of the WDS tools on a 32-bit computer to create a catalog when the only servers are 64-bit Windows Server 2012 - they literally CAN'T build the catalog for 32-bit computers, even if they are the WDS server themselves! Just move everything to 64-bit? Then that's a whole-site hardware upgrade for little reason. And the recommended version of Office to deploy? 32-bit. It's all an ill-thought-out mess.)
But, hell, I have touchscreens for little kiddiewinks with snotty fingers. And I have a menu they can't navigate and apps they can click on the front screen and not get out of without memorising magic incantations that only work 80% of the time.
Change is frowned upon in IT. But it's also the fastest moving industry out there. Not many other industries where what you were doing 10 or even 5 years ago is COMPLETELY USELESS KNOWLEDGE now. We frown upon unnecessary and counter-productive change. And this article is hinting at the admission from MS that we were actually right about that - after billions of man-hours of wasted time - just because they couldn't put in a "classic" option or whatever.
IT people don't mind change for the right reasons, it's the end user that absolutely hates it. Just look at the noise Facebook gets every time it revamps it's interface.
Now consider how upset users get with each minor change and you wonder why on earth Microsoft thought changing everything was a good idea. Users like familiar and tend to want retraining on each little change. They want those little step by step "click here now click there" guides they depend on to be accurate.
With Windows 8 I'm hearing more noise from the people I know who least understand computers than I do from the IT pros. IT people just change settings and install addons until they have what they want.
I've been using Win8 for the last couple of months... maybe it's because of how I configure, but I can't see what all the fuss is about, apart from aesthetics.
Okay, boot-to-desktop: granted, I'd like to see that. Although it's only a Win+D away when I start my machine.
But everything else? Meh. Pretty much everything I use has a shortcut on my desktop and is just a double-click away. I don't need a start screen or a start button, really.
If I wanted to, I could quite easily switch those shortcuts to all be available from my start screen - but a) I'm too lazy and b) I don't like the auto ordering. Similarly, anything new I install automatically dumps an icon onto the start screen which can be transferred to where I want it on my desktop in moments.
Nope, the only reasons I use Win8 at all is because I can develop WP8 and Android versions of my games in parallel. The metro apps stuff hanging off the back is just bloat from where I sit.
I find that my Win8 machine boots to desktop, having flashed up the start screen for about a second, I suspect it's something that I load at startup which does this, but it suits me fine. Maybe it's a domain member thing?
Incidentally, I also find that "escape" gets you to the desktop.
My concern is that MS have done a lot of work researching how to improve the desktop and make it operate more efficiently. There are an amount of very shoutey people on forums such as this one who don't deal well with change and won't drop something, should they have re-enforcement around them that they may be correct. (It's an IT guy trait, I see pretty much every day at work - have a look round you you'll see people who exhibit it, making spurious arguments about why a new way of doing something is no good.)
I remember the 3.1 to 95 interface change and at that time, I was the IT guy who objected to change. I ran 95 in the 3.1 interface for ages, until I stopped because every corporate machine I used had the other interface. Had the Internet been as it is now, at that time, I strongly suspect we'd still have the Win3.1 interaface. This is the nub of the issue - are we going to prevent new innovation in UI by objecting so vociferously to things which are only a little bit different. As I see it there are three changes in Win8 that people object to:
No start button
No start menu
Metro Interface
Every other problem that people have either doesn't really exist or is trivially worked around. I just don't see how we've moved to the point where these relatively small changes are akin to the end of the world.
I'm from the school that says:
"If it works, DON'T FIX IT!"
The UI used on XP has been my interface to Windows for many years. I have grown used to it, and I use it to efficiently do what I need to do on my Windows machine. Now, in the name of "delivering what users want", Microsoft feels they must radically alter the UI I have grown used to. Not once (ribbon), not twice (Win 7), but THREE separate times (Win 8). What was initially an annoyance that could be handled, has become a constant barrage of UI changes, some minor (Win 7 has the "show desktop" button on the far right, as opposed to the far left in XP), some major (the ribbon -- no, I don't like it), but all without the option of going back to what was working fine for me in the first place.
It's enough to make one wonder if Microsoft is TRYING to alienate their customers.
The fact they've waited so damn long to pretend to offer concessions (Start *button* not the *menu* we actually want for example), all the while denying there's a problem, all go to demonstrate they weren't listening to 'shouty people' when it was hatched, weren't listening to them after it launched and aren't pandering to them now.
The underlying reality is: MS justified vandalising the XP then Win7 UIs based on instrumenting Windows installs and logging user usage patterns. If change is coming it will be driven by the same sort of feedback. Given the overarching 'by hook or by crook, Win8 everywhere' corporate plan, there must be a serious difference between actual usage and what was expected/planned to trigger any backpeddling.
Can't help MS that the 'shouty people' are so pissed off this time many deliberately opted in to the usage feedback to make sure the weasels at MS can't hide behind the same excuses. The majority of users may well be using a tiny fraction of the UI or OS and careless about what their PC reports back to MS, that's still not an excuse to take it away from those that use more.
No, they specifically shouldn't have been listening to "shoutey people". People who shout when there's a problem, rather than looking at what they're presented with and trying to understand it are exactly the people who shouldn't define your systems.
Just have a look at the bitch-fest sessions on various IT forums, they're full of people who have obviously either never used Windows 8 or used it for a few minutes, not instantly loved it and demand Windows 7 again. Why should the UI designers listen to people like that? Especially when they've got all the research that they've carried out backing up how users actually use the systems. Oh, yeah, there is a ton of research data that they've gone through, observing how people operate the desktop, how different groups of people react to changes and how different workflows are affected by the changes.
I'll mention the Henry Ford comment again: "If I made what my customers wanted, I'd be making faster horses".
“We feel good that we've listened and looked at all of the customer feedback. We are being principled, not stubborn."
"Microsoft hadn’t done enough to close the knowledge gap by training staff in outlets selling Windows 8 machines or by educating customers in the run-up to last October's launch."
"Microsoft recognizes it slipped up by not doing enough to persuade PC makers to build hardware actually capable of using Metro’s UI"
1. they back-track;
2. they insult the intelligence of their users;
3. they insult the intelligence of their hardware partners.
As long as they keep with the 'hey we're a monopolist, we can do what we like' mindset, Google and Apple will continue to eat their lunch.
MSFT == EPIC FAIL.
I agree...which sadly is what I like about Windows 8 the best....the fact that I can install startisback and have the fly-out style start menu back...the nested-scrolling start menu was a step backwards for usability since most times you have to scroll once you get to the start menu. Windows 8 is a BEAST under the hood and I hope they really get the UI fixed to match!
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The big problem is that a lot of OEM's are still shipping without touch interfaces.
All windows needs to do to be good(ish) is boot to desktop by default - proper desktop, with start menu, et al.
Metro should ONLY be activated when a touch interface is plugged in, or switched to on a hybrid tablet / notebook - and then only when the user has tapped/clicked a confirmation button.
Simples
They also removed all the nice chrome from the desktop, that needs to be reinstated in "desktop mode" or whatever they want to call it. Some of that stuff is actually useful, like drop shadows to frame a window on top of another.
What I am really asking for is separate desktop and touch version of the OS, with the desktop version being a really polished and nice looking desktop experience, and then the touch version looking just like Windows 8 does today.
That way there's a version that suits the various classes of device.
Microsoft know this though, they forced Metro on all of us as a way of making sure it got out into the wider market and had a chance of succeeding. Not that the strategy worked...
Thanks but no thanks. Been there, sold the Android tablet. The current system works well on both types of systems - desktops and penables and does so in exactly the same way. One UI, one concept, one set of software.
If you want "specialist" UI - buy an iThingy
MS can blame anybody and any one thing they like.
The fact of the matter is that they REMOVED OPTIONS. I don't care if people want to use Metro. I don't even care if they want to have it as the default on a fresh install. None of that really affects people. What affects people is NOT having the option to go back how it was. Give me the option, and I don't care what you put as default or try to foist on users - if I don't like it, I can turn it off and go back.
It's simple backwards-compatibility, simple user-choice, simple user-training issues. Moving to Metro did nothing for my Windows 8 users, except force me to put things back how they were by other means. When some third-party project on Sourceforge has options to make Windows work the way you want, that Windows itself doesn't have, then you have a big problem convincing your users that you are doing it "for them" (whether or not you actually are).
And, honestly, the failure of Metro is really the failure of the Windows app store. If that had taken off, we'd be hearing that the next version of Windows would be Metro-only and you could only buy Office through the store. Fact is, it was a flop, nobody really used it, nobody really targetted it (even MS's games division sell the revamped AOE2HD only through Steam, not even bothered with Games for Windows Live or the Windows store) and thus the bet of placing millions of business desktops on it was stupid.
Additionally, the removal of choice present a new problem for business users. Do you know I had to clear out Weather apps, Sports apps, News apps and other junk just to make a clean Windows 8 image for deployment? And how do you do that? You have to uninstall them from the control panel because otherwise they keep coming back up for new users. Did you know that you have to get to the personalisation screen and press the "no-hints-on-the-screen" Ctrl-Shift-F3 magic shortcut to actually use sysprep'ed images that you're deploying internally?
They totally lost sight that not every Windows 8 deployment will be to a personal user, running on a touchscreen (?!), that is willing to lose all the ways that work without a touchscreen (and, I would argue, the Start Menu etc. was more intuitive than having to stroke from top to bottom of the screen to close a Metro app which - on the touchscreens we have here - works only about 80% of the time because the screen is flat and has a large border, but only the visible image is "touchable" and the software just doesn't see it as a proper swipe unless you know how to do it).
I don't care what you do with the OS. Gimme an option to turn it off. You have the capability to put out an OS with fancy new features, put in an "off" button, and monitor how many people use it. If the number who use it is vanishingly close to zero, you can consider it a success and maybe remove the old interface in the NEXT version. But any fool will tell you that at least 50% of people on Metro would have wanted the option to turn it off from the start and would have pressed it. And that's a message - it means "stop faffing about with my computer and don't take this functionality away".
And don't forget that what a guy deploying business networks wants is VASTLY different to what a elderly first-timer buying a new PC wants. People have different needs and, thus, need different options. I *DO NOT* want my users to be able to install or use Metro apps. There's no need for it and it's just another avenue for exploit and time-wasting. Making it difficult for me to exercise that option makes it difficult to sell me your product.
It's not just Microsoft, either. But the fact is that they could have avoided almost ALL the negative press of Windows 8 by just putting in an off-switch or bundling Classic Start Menu as an option at the very least.
It was literally a coin-flip whether we deployed 7 or 8 without Metro this year (after a long hiatus while we waited for MS to sort itself out). We only went with 8 because we could turn it back into 7 (effectively) and get longer-lasting support for it (so that when they mess up the next version, we can just ignore it like we did Vista, etc.).
"so much writing"
Did you bother to read any of it?
"Things change..."
Has the previous poster's business suddenly changed? Have the users he supports suddenly decided to change the way they do their jobs? No, because well managed change is done carefully, with the agreement of all affected. Instead, we have this paternalistic fait accompli where Microsoft are saying, "We will decide what's best for you!" when they should have said, "Why not give our new interface a try, we think you'll love it!"
In the same way that the 95 GUI overtook the 3.1 GUI, Metro could have gained traction as people got used to using it at their own pace. Refusing to give users a choice suggests a lack of faith in the new UI.
"...don't like it? Use something else"
Two of my previous employers would allow you to choose alternatives to Windows on the desktop if you could present a reasonable business case. The enforced retraining that the Metro UI introduces makes that business case even simpler.
"or write your own OS"
That's why we have Eadon! :-)
No the posters business has not changed.
But MS is changing their OS, either buy into it or don’t. You don’t like it use 7, stay with XP or use Linux. Rather than moaning about it still buying it. Your still buying it so your part of the people who have upgraded, as far as MS are concerned they got a sale. And probably not that bothered whether you like it or not.
IOW: "that'll teach ya to tie in some vendor's product as a cornerstone of your business."
This flagrant disregard and disrespect for business workflow is pandemic: I see the same thing in FOSS, unfortunately. Fortunately, however, there are more choices. Thank YOU MS for giving us the opportunity (by pulling off our OS-security-blanket and leaving us businesses in the cold) to actually seeing there *are* choices.
What choices? Many toolchains simply run on Windows only and can't be / won't be ported due to costs or the integration of MS products with no replacement (Sharepoint, Exchange/Outlook, Word + Word Templates/VBA. Excel with VBA etc.)
Win8 when it comes to companies starting 2014 will run those stuff just fine and with limited training for the end user since Olav Officedrohne does NOT use an OS, he uses a program.
How about use CLASSIC SHELL to replace the missing start button and menu?
Why so much gnashing of teeth? Microsoft fucked up and is looking like backtracking. Why wait for them when someone else has already stepped into the void with a free application that remedies it pretty fucking well, here, now, today, for free!
Use it to get rid of lots of the irritating Metro UI aspects - to the point that you'd hardly realise that Win8 was plaguing your hardware.
www.classicshell.net
they consciously IGNORED the feedback provided by testers (no, I wasn't one of them), to the point of saying: yeah, yeah, but we know better, so shut up" long before W8 was launched. They kept ignoring the howling and whinging coming out of just about every review after the launch, regarding this petty interface issues of metro/start button / etc. But hey, they they have woken up to the term "learning curve".
They could have done that in no time before the launch, and shortly after in no time. Instead - they put a middle finger up the air, and now they have the finger up their rectum as W8 sales are, in the marketing speak "uninspiring". Well, (...) them!
I don't mind windows 8 to be honest.
If I want to open something I can press the windows key and start typing and it appears.
I did however show this to my uncle at the weekend as his XP laptop is getting near it's end and he was a bit unsure.
The only thing that irritates me is Chrome, for some reason I can't get my taskbar to appear unless I minimise the window and I can't run it in windows 8 mode as then I can't seem to have 2 sessions open at once.
Other than that I have no real gripe.
I capitulated, after struggling with the "modern" UI, and installed the Start8 start button utility. My next mission is to stop anything from automatically opening in one of those horrid, counter-intuitive, full-screen, "modern" apps. To think that I almost thought writing one would be worthwhile! On the other hand, what a great OS. Fast, smooth, never a lockup or BSOD. I'm guessing there was some bad internal politics that went on as the UI got developed.
"The Register revealed in January that Microsoft was blaming PC makers for not building PCs with the right specs to actually run Windows 8 touch."
From the introduction of the 386 by Intel in 1985 to the introduction of XP in 2001, Mincrosoft was offering non-professional users a 16-bit OS for their higher spec 32-bit devices. Now MS has decided that they, not the hardware manufacturers should specify the hardware that users can buy.. The OS exists to support the functionality of the hardware, not the other way round. Why anybody with a keyboard and mouse would wish to poke at a screen defeats me. However poking a screen would obviously be preferable, without having a keyboard or mouse, to e.g. shouting at it or possibly dropping it ob the floor and stamping on it until it selected the requisit function.
The imposition of a Desktop designed primarily for the benefit of those who lack keyboards and mice is clearly a retrograde step.
dos 7 with a 32 bit windows environment. As I remember Mary Jo Foley praised it as the most advanced PC operatng system even though OS/2 warp and NT were around.
I stopped reading articles by her at that time. She was/is too much of a Microsoft evangelist. Even Microsoft about faces are wonderful examples of their benign devinity... as written up by MJF...
While I agree totally with you, there may be some cues being taken here from other units at Microsoft. The DirectX team, for example, has been working this way for over a decade. They lay down the spec, the GPU vendors then create the hardware to fulfill it. Don't have the hardware, DirectX will report as much and may emulate the behaviour if it's feasible.
Of course an OS is wholly different, and there's no effort made to detect the lack of things like touch or deal with that lack by falling back to behaviours which work without touch. The whole thing leaves the OS interface team seeming... a little out of touch?
@Eadon
"I'd say that open source is better for non-geeks. If you let non-geeks loose on the internet with an Windows box, then they will get hosed within 20 minutes. Linux systems do not have that problem"
Oh but they do.
Linux is complicated, especially for the not so tech savvy.
For example I've seen Linux boxes get compromised because someone was having permissions issues with a website so did CHMOD 777 and opened it all up.
Is Linux inherently less secure? No, certainly not. The problem is users. On the desktop Linux is much less likely to get compromised because
1) most users are tech savvy
2) there are many fewer users, less fruitful to write malware to attack them.
But on servers its a different story, Linux ones are more likely to get hacked. Again its not because Linux isn't secure - its the old story of
1) clueless user actions
2) old software that hasn't been updated.
Well...last two pc's i bought for the company were Lenovo's with Windows 8 on them...we have a new starter next week..and thank god ebuyer have got the previous machine with Win 7 back in stock again! I guess it's a good thing that MS have slightly relented...although we aren't getting the start menu back...just the ability to boot to desktop.
I do find it totally odd, that in my entire 15 years of using PC's, this is the first time ever I've wanted to go backwards, rather than forwards..on any sort of machine, be it Mac or PC, and if thats the case then MS have failed, and failed to provide a reason to go to them anymore.
Planning for the demise of XP - my non-commercial users decided they didn't want Windows 8. They do like their tablets of various brands for their portability and couch surfing. However they want their main PC to be fully functional for serious work without additional learning curves just to stand still.
So I'm currently buying up sturdy second-hand Dell laptops with Windows 7 - and raiding my stockpile of Windows 7 licences for the desktops. The use of MS Office is also being reviewed to see how well Libre Office will satisfy the users' required functionality.
Nonsense. Commecial buyers with an IT worth the name run extensive tests with the future OS to make sure all needed components run. And most of those tests where done in 2012(1) and therefor with Win7. That is all there is.
Two of our customers (Think 4000 and 10K+ workstations) are currently testing Win8 for mobile devices (Dell and Lenovo tablet pc) since unlike iThingy/Fragmentdroid the Win8 units can run the full set of legacy software. Java Swing/SWT applications do not run on touchy toys but run fine on Win8. Same for Word and Symphony.
(1) No, the 20+ percent XP are mostly NOT in companies. Those are mostly in countries where stealing software is more likely than buying it.
This obsessions with constantly changing the user interface is just madness and makes no financial sense, it is like a car manufacturer deciding the put the steering wheel in the boot just because it is different.
Microsoft should take a leaf out of Honda's book, all the controls in their cars are in the same place throughout the generations, this is why people (espeically older people) like them because there is no steep learing curve trying to find everything. We want to use the operating system not fight it just to get the basic things done.
I took the plunge and built a PC to avoid Win8 and keep using Win7 as it just worked, quite frankly I don't believe a word of Microsoft insisting they have listened to their customer/users.The astonsihing arrogance they display just doesn't disappear overnight so I will sit back and patiently wait for MS dump their next offering over their customers.
To get the 'Computer' icon on a Windows 2012 desktop, you simply enter "%Systemroot%\system32\rundll32.exe" shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL desk.cpl,,0 on the command line. This is obvious progress and I'm saddened that people don't understand that Microsoft are simply trying to embrace the 1980's UNIX experience.
Or, you could go to the desktop, right-click, personalise, then select "Change Desktop Icons" from the left hand side.
This comment underlines the problems that MS are dealing with - Should they bother to take seriously anyone who can't follow some really basic steps to achieve something? It's exactly the same thing you did in Win7 to get the desktop icons changed and if I recall correctly in Vista as well. It shows up the person making the comment to be so desperate for the software to be the problem that they don't spend a tiny amount of time using their own initiative to solve the problem.
Yes seems a lot of so called seasoned 'IT Professionals' can't actually fight their way out of a paperbag.
"Wahhhh I'm stuck in Metro! I can't get out!!! Wahhh where is the Desktop??? I can't find the Control panel!"
Makes you wonder how they get dressed in the morning. I take a new Windows 8 install for a customer, 5 minutes of tweaking, 10 minutes of quick instruction on how it works and they are set.
No crying or raging. Just grateful happy customer. Not one of them has sh*t their pants over it and demanded I take it off.
I guess MS are caving into the Tards and changing it back.
My windows licence happily sits on the shelf, not used. Having three failed install attempts and an aborted blue screen when it did work, I realised that upgrade does not mean rebuild. Despite windows 8 being the cause of the rebuild. So please don't include my licence as one of the millions. I am not alone with this, every machine my company buys has windows 8, all are flatlined on purchase and made to be windows 7.
Touchscreens and lack of are not hte downfall of windows 8.
Did you consider that it may be your hardware that's the problem? One of the few things people don't complain about in Windows 8 is the installer. If you got BSODs when you installed it, it's likely that you have dodgy hardware that wasn't being used in the same way with your previous OS. One thing Win 8 doesn't do is randomly BSOD all the time.
I genuinely like Windows 8. If I fire up the computer to play a bit of music, watch something on Netflix, speak to someone on Skype or check to see if that email I have been waiting for has arrived arrived (these tasks probably make up about 80% of the usage of my home computer) , it's more convenient and less fiddly than any old version of Windows or any Linux desktop I have used. If I need to get some real work done, the desktop is only one click away.
Lots of talk about backtracking, but what they will probably do is ...
(1) Place a "Start Button" on the desktop and the thing will point right back at Metro.
(2) Leave out Aero Glass and rounded corners and drop shadows rather than letting the user decide if they want flat 2D or fancy 3D themes.
(3) Charge money for this half-assed service pack which ironically forces MicroSheep into a de facto Windows subscription model without ever announcing it!
The incompetence of the post-XP Microsoft cannot possibly be underestimated
==Reller told Foley:
“We feel good that we've listened and looked at all of the customer feedback. We are being principled, not stubborn," about modifying Windows 8 based on that feedback."==
Isn't that what they should have done when people said the same things very loudly all through the release preview? How the hell can a company be so stubborn and blind to the problems they're thrusting upon users they expect to upgrade? If they dare try to charge for this 8.1 update or whatever it ends up being they can go fsck themselves. I got Windows 8 for my aging laptop purely for any performance boost it would give and I would dearly like to undo that mistake without going through a reinstall. I gained a bigger performance increase by upping the memory to 4GB.
The best 'upgrade' I got is one that makes scrolling through directories some mammoth task that causes my entire system to sink to its knees and literally lock up for 2 - 10 seconds. Once it finishes loading them up it's fine until I try to scroll more and the same process repeats. It reminds me of an old Windows 98 (?) bug where icon shortcuts would fail to load and you had to rebuild the whole icon list to fix it. In this case it renders my laptop useless for the whole time it's doing whatever it does.
However Linux in my experience had never been a hit with anybody but the geek.
I support a number of user types and have tried various OS's on all,
1. The wife. Form over function,
Likes win7. Dislikes win 8. Hates XP hated Linux even more. Loves her Mac.
2. 9 year old son. (Potential geek in the making).
Within hours was teaching me how to use win8. Likes win 7. XP is just boring. Linux (why does it look shit)
3. 14 year old step daughter. Brain washed by nerd dad that Linux was the way to go, but could not exchange files with friends. XP looked shit, win 7 great. Win 8 what's the point.
Mac. Looks good but can't exchange files with friends.
4. End users at work. Good generally care, but hate win 8 and must have office. Open office on Linux trial did not go we'll.
5. Me. Office a must for work. So win 7. Fire up and rdp session for redhat and suse for system admin.
Home. Win 7 for photoshop. And XP for a very propriety 8 in: 8 out recording interface. Which has never seen a Linux driver.
Conclusion. Give win 8, which I like from a stability and performance point of view a win 7 front end (by all means if a touch screen is available start with metro)
I can move my mouse 1" by 1" on my desk and command anything on my screen. Why would I want to lift my entire hand and arm to touch something on a Metro touch screen?
Is it cool & sexy? Sure. Would I want to spend all day at work doing that? No way. Besides, I absolutely HATE fingerprints on my monitors....
Actually MS complained about TABLET hardware. And for MS based tablets - TOUCH is the bastard stepchild. Windows tablets have been and still are Pen first, touch second.
The vendors all failed to deliver the Atom based penables they showed mid 2012 in time for the Win8 launch. Some started delivery as late as March 2013. THAT was the complain.
Anyone listening in Mountain View? Here's a one step, sure-fire way to prevent Windoze 8 from ever succeeding.
A full Android runtime for Windoze. It should run *inside* of Windoze, right from the desktop.
With the entire Android ecosystem available on Windoze, no one will *ever* write a Metro app again.
I ran the consumer preview on a systems hooked up to a touchscreen (An Acer T230H if you must know) and it's absolute piss- many of the gestures are difficult if not impossible to execute on said touchscreen. Especially since the gesture for bringing up the Metro UI requires me to swipe from the right corner of the screen, which is impossible to do.
Start button must come back. Because even on touchscreens, Windows 8 fails.
Well, kind of sort of a mea culpa from Microsoft on Windows 8. Maybe they'll stop the blame game, fingering OEMs for not designing hardware that is right for Windows 8. Damned if I know how to design that hardware.
Anyone who can't wait for 8.1 or Blue or whatever it will be called, if and when it is released, go get your start button back,
http://www.classicshell.net/
Ben Myers
"There also seems to be a hint Microsoft recognizes it slipped up by not doing enough to persuade PC makers to build hardware actually capable of using Metro’s UI, which is largely irrelevant on machines lacking touch screens." - please understand that people who use 23"+ screens on their desk never will use touch screens, because a.) they are too expensive in that size and b.) because of their size, they are positioned so far away on the desk that users CANNOT use the touch functionality in any comfortable way. So why would those users ever want an OS which has a UI designed for touch use?
It's also complete rubbish, while it does work with touch screen, it's by no means a requirement. I've got Windows 8 at home and have no touch screen, but I do have a touch mouse and a normal mouse, I don't even use the touch mouse as a mouse with a scroll wheel works just fine.
I really, genuinely, don't understand what all the fuss is about. The start menu takes up the whole screen and looks a little different and this has generated over 200 posts on this thread alone.
Touch is the part of "tablet" that thankfully is NOT emphasized by MS. Keyboard use (for desktops/notebooks) and pens (or mouse). Fingerprinting is a (IMHO useless no matter what OS) add-on for those who want to produce (Acer W-Series) or buy a cheap tablet instead of a useful tablet pc.
Actually the systems works very nice on non-touch notebooks since the keyboard optimization reduces the need for trackpad/trackpoint (or external mouse)
If Apple released an OS that looked identical to tifkam (metro) people would be all over it saying how visionary it is but Microsoft with their "capitalist agenda to take over the world" (so 20 years ago) sad geeks stuck in a forgotten decade would rather just bitch and whine about it.
It's optional, configurable, and if you really know your stuff ... TURN IT OFF!
Idiots!
Begin flame and down votes!
If you find WIndows 8 confusing, maybe a job in retail would suit you better.
It's a hell of a lot faster than Windows 7 and who spends that much time in their start menu anyway? Mash the start button and type the app or setting you are looking for, The last ubuntu distro I used did the same thing pretty much.
Downvote away.
I really want to go back to TYPING the application I want to run. I miss DOS 5.1. Ooooh, maybe Microsoft can make it so I have to fiddle with IRQ's and work at getting TSR's loaded into high memory also! Are you trying to say that typing the name of the app you want to run is PROGRESS? It's not. It's a workaround to make a shitty UI somewhat usable.