Windows 8 preview

[Cogman]

http://allthingsd.com/20110601/excl...ned-about-windows-8/?mod=tweet#slideshow-1-12

And a usage video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I&feature=*********

Hmmm, I'm kind of conflicted. For touch screens, this movement makes a lot of sense. However, for general productivity this seems like useless fluff. The start screen looks like it would be pretty annoying to power users.

One thing is for sure, this is the single biggest change to the UI that microsoft has ever done. It is a pretty daring move.

 

[Jaskalas]

That looks like a very nice tablet. Full windows functionality on a highly mobile device. Curious how well the hardware will complete the package.

 

[ViRGE]

Uhh...

I'll take WTH for $2000, Alex.

This looks like a terrible desktop/laptop UI.

 

[sportage]

Touch is nice for hand devices. But on a 27" screen? I don't want to sit that close to a 27" screen. But I guess people that take orders at McDonalds might like this?

 

[BD2003]

This is ridiculous. What is the point of this? Its just another shell over the standard windows desktop, like windows media player.

Running full windows on a tablet makes no sense, even with a touch shell. Its too heavy, too much legacy. Hasnt worked before, wont work now. = Fail.

Using mouse/kb with a touch interface = Fail.

Touch based laptops/desktops = Fail.

It reeks of being reactionary, of just throwing something together to compete with apple. Instead of scaling up an already arm based, lightweight phone OS, that is proving successful by apple, google, palm, RIM...they choose to go with windows, the exact thing that HASNT worked for over a decade now.

Did I mention its also hideously ugly? I hate the metro look so much. Thin, ugly fonts with terrible antialiasing. Single color squares. It looks like a 486 could render it. ugh!

Apple appears to be bringing to the desktop a few things from iOS to Lion, but theyre choosing the things that actually make sense in the desktop/laptop context. I think I'm finally gonna have to make that switch.

 

[lxskllr]

It makes Unity and Gnome3 look great :^D

 

[Kev]

I think this could be really sweet.

You could:

- have a tablet pc with a good touch interface
- dock your tablet and use it as a monitor
- run all standard windows apps
- sync your app purchases to a windows live account so you can use the same apps on pc and tablet
- have a shared family tablet with multiple user accounts (as opposed to having to buy an ipad for every person who wants to customize it, have their own email/app accounts, etc.

 

[BD2003]

You could also have a tablet that:

- Gets infested with viruses and crapware, and requires constant maintenance.

- Runs half as fast, weighs twice as much, runs twice as hot, lasts half as long and costs twice as much.

-It'll be capable of a lot and not good at any of it.

-If it's running ARM, forget about backwards compatibility....remind me again why anyone wants this windows 7 based?

I don't have a particular problem with their actual touch-UI. It'd be very interesting as its own lightweight alternative to android, iOS or webOS. But running it on top of windows, with all it's weight and baggage...what a joke.

I hope there's a lot more to windows 8 than this.

 

[Cogman]

You could also have a tablet that:

- Gets infested with viruses and crapware, and requires constant maintenance.

I've not had issues with crapware, viruses, or had the need for constant maintenance for a LONG time with windows. (Vista really). I doubt windows 8 will regress.

- Runs half as fast, weighs twice as much, runs twice as hot, lasts half as long and costs twice as much.

Windows 8 is said to have a smaller footprint than windows 7, That is pretty impressive considering windows 7 could run anywhere XP could run.

-It'll be capable of a lot and not good at any of it.

Never really been a windows problem.

-If it's running ARM, forget about backwards compatibility....remind me again why anyone wants this windows 7 based?

As soon as you throw out backwards compatability, windows 8 is going to be EXTREMELY thin. Half of the "bloat" of windows is stuff thrown in for backwards compatibility.

I don't have a particular problem with their actual touch-UI. It'd be very interesting as its own lightweight alternative to android, iOS or webOS. But running it on top of windows, with all it's weight and baggage...what a joke.

Windows is not that heavy of a desktop OS. Most desktop OSes such as linux are basically at the same level as far as heaviness goes. For a tablet or mobile device, that remains to be seen. 8 is supposed to cut back from 7s system requirements, so it will be interesting to see if that makes it a better fit for tablets.

I hope there's a lot more to windows 8 than this.

Tell me, what else could they put in a video that would convince you to get windows 8? The only thing that they can really show is UI changes. Nobody but a fringe group of people really care about much else.

 

[dpodblood]

Nice UI for mobile devices, but I don't want to use that touch interface on a desktop computer. Also I suspect even if the footprint is smaller than Windows 7 it will still be to bloated to run on a tablet device.

 

[rasczak]

hrrm, not sure if like...

 

[BD2003]

To be clear, I'm only talking about it in the context of tablets/touch, because that's all they've really shown.

Windows might be equal to Linux or OSX in terms of "heavyness", but it and all the others are a beast compared to iOS and android. I just can't see this one size fits all approach as working. Why not run windows 8 on our phones as well while we're at it?

And their new app model is based on html5 and JavaScript...so basically, fancy widgets then?

Maybe they're at the point where windows is so mature and there's so little that can be done to make a desktop OS better. Fine, I can sorta accept that. Then they should turn their focus towards making their mobile OS the future, not shoehorning the past 25 years of legacy into everything.

 

[ViRGE]

And their new app model is based on html5 and JavaScript...so basically, fancy widgets then?

Worse: Active Desktop.

 

[Cogman]

Worse: Active Desktop.

*shudders* wow, that brings back memories.

 

[M0RPH]

I can see it now. Windows 8 will just be a slightly tweaked Windows 7 + this optional additional UI layer which is basically just another Media Center-like UI. After all of us using regular computers disable this thing, we'll just be left with another incremental, lackluster Windows release, just like W7 was.

 

[SunnyD]

As soon as you throw out backwards compatability, windows 8 is going to be EXTREMELY thin. Half of the "bloat" of windows is stuff thrown in for backwards compatibility.

"Backwards compatibility" will be available with Win8ARM. The catch is that even legacy apps will require a recompile, but all the underlying APIs Windows comes with are available in ARM flavor too. Microsoft confirmed that basically there's nothing different between the ARM and x86 versions. The ARM version won't come with an x86 emulator though.

 

[JumBie]

Other than that touch screen crap, the basic desktop looks exactly the same as windows 7. I bet it is windows 7 with some minor enhancements, not that I'm complaining or anything.

 

[Cogman]

"Backwards compatibility" will be available with Win8ARM. The catch is that even legacy apps will require a recompile, but all the underlying APIs Windows comes with are available in ARM flavor too. Microsoft confirmed that basically there's nothing different between the ARM and x86 versions. The ARM version won't come with an x86 emulator though.

Drivers are a specific place where I doubt we will see a large amount of shared code between the x86 and ARM version. That is also going to be a place where the ARM version will be significantly trimmer than the x86 version (because it won't support as many devices).

As for applications, I have a hard time believing that all we'll have to do is recompile our programs with the "this is for an arm processor" flag set. I just have a hard time seeing the API work that well.

 

[BD2003]

Drivers are a specific place where I doubt we will see a large amount of shared code between the x86 and ARM version. That is also going to be a place where the ARM version will be significantly trimmer than the x86 version (because it won't support as many devices).

As for applications, I have a hard time believing that all we'll have to do is recompile our programs with the "this is for an arm processor" flag set. I just have a hard time seeing the API work that well.

I can only imagine the nightmare drivers will be under ARM. The transition to Vista requiring new drivers was bad enough, and was the cause of 90% of peoples complaints and hate for Vista.

I have to imagine that the final product will look drastically different a year from now. I just cant see this whole two separate UI thing working either. If it doesnt offer a superior experience from the start, people are going to shun it.

Even putting performance and usability complaints aside, what's even the draw here? Active desktop didnt work, and widgets are basically irrelevant. The larger surface makes a bigger target for your fingers, but the end result is just prettier (to some), dumbed down, and less useful.

It just seems so unambitious. Theyll never be able to move forward until they can stop looking backward. They need to either flesh this new UI out to be a replacement and force it, or integrate it into their traditional UI and make active desktop new again.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

I see terrible things in the future. Porn, masturbating and touch screens, will not get along.

 

[ViRGE]

As for applications, I have a hard time believing that all we'll have to do is recompile our programs with the "this is for an arm processor" flag set. I just have a hard time seeing the API work that well.

With .NET it's already rather trivial, since everything is run through the CLR virtual machine in the first place. So any pure .NET programs should already run on ARM without any changes. Any unmanaged C/C++ programs would have to be recompiled for ARM though, and if they're suitably complex that probably won't be easy.

 

[Perryg114]

This should be a tablet specific OS and not for laptops or desktops. Personally, I think I should be able to do more on a desktop than you can do on your average phone. It looks like real computer users are going to have to turn alot of this crap off to use a computer. Yeah maybe kids will like this interface and they learn fast but many of us have spent decades learning how to operate a computer and no longer have unlimited time to learn something totally new. I work 40 hrs and week and also have a sideline business as well as being a husband and a parent. There is not much time or desire to re-invent the wheel. I am still trying to get use to the Office 2007 ribbon interface. All the stuff is there but it is scattered all over the place.

Quite a few business users are still using XP and we are two versions down the road now and they want to introduce yet another OS? I think an OS should be good for more than a year. I have not gotten use to Win 7 yet.

Perry

 

[Snapster]

This should be a tablet specific OS and not for laptops or desktops. Personally, I think I should be able to do more on a desktop than you can do on your average phone. It looks like real computer users are going to have to turn alot of this crap off to use a computer. Yeah maybe kids will like this interface and they learn fast but many of us have spent decades learning how to operate a computer and no longer have unlimited time to learn something totally new. I work 40 hrs and week and also have a sideline business as well as being a husband and a parent. There is not much time or desire to re-invent the wheel. I am still trying to get use to the Office 2007 ribbon interface. All the stuff is there but it is scattered all over the place.

Quite a few business users are still using XP and we are two versions down the road now and they want to introduce yet another OS? I think an OS should be good for more than a year. I have not gotten use to Win 7 yet.

Perry

By the time Window 8 comes out it will be 3 years since Windows 7 and a further 2/3 since Vista. Personally I think they should have shorter release cycles with more minor updates and fixes and lower the cost per update, however because of the corp side of the business they wouldn't get away with that.

I agree with you on the fact that your typical desktop user wont really use it in it's current incarnation, but I would be quick to point out that that the shell shown is designed for tablets with touch screen and the Aero UI will always be available. It's a bit harsh to say it's crap as it's an excellent UI for it's purpose.

Most people are naturally resistant to change, and seem to think that as a desktop user this UI is being forced upon them when Microsoft still has lots of development time ahead to refine it to have something that will work better for desktop users too, or maybe not at all. Above all, it would be suicide if Microsoft forced this on business desktops so it won't happen and everyone can have the desktop they love!

 

[Snapster]

I see terrible things in the future. Porn, masturbating and touch screens, will not get along.

Isn't that was screen protectors are for ? :$

 

[SunnyD]

With .NET it's already rather trivial, since everything is run through the CLR virtual machine in the first place. So any pure .NET programs should already run on ARM without any changes. Any unmanaged C/C++ programs would have to be recompiled for ARM though, and if they're suitably complex that probably won't be easy.

The only unmanaged applications that should have any difficulty with a simple flag recompile would be any using inline assembler or chip specific instruction sets (SSE, 3DNow!, etc), which shouldn't be terribly many at this point. Anyone that gives a shit will be writing to APIs which wrap these things. Some APIs may need some tweaking because of it, but the apps themselves shouldn't.

And yes, drivers will be an issue... but Microsoft is taking a hard stance on the hardware platform, so there shouldn't be too much under the hood that matters in the end.