Posted on 03/15/2012 10:22:26 AM PDT by ShadowAce
It's fair to say that the typical reaction of pundits and analysts to Windows 8 is quite different to yours or mine. Our misgivings are shared, I have discovered, by many Microsoft employees.
In a nutshell, Microsoft is changing Windows 8. In addition to many welcome and uncontroversial improvements, it is adding a widget layer for touch users. This is fine, in itself. The problem is the way it's done. The widget layer drastically interferes with the daily workflow of a user and his or her Windows applications. Familiar parts of Windows have been stripped out or hidden, replaced with non-functional equivalents, or not replaced at all. The replacement for the Start Menu (for example) ejects you into this immature and non-functional fullscreen widget layer. And then, because it can't do very much, in the next moment, you're back again. This goes on all day – until you turn the computer off.
It's a rather an elaborate kind of torture.
So why isn't this a major story? Well, you must remember that almost all the analysts and journalists you have read enthusing over Windows 8 have been shown the Consumer Preview running on tablets, or on an overhead projector, in a carefully-choreographed demonstration environment. My experience differs slightly. I installed it one evening on my regular Windows machine, and the next day set about attempting to do a full day's El Reg work, just as if I were on a Mac or PC. (My main machine is a Mac, but I use a Thinkpad for writing longer pieces, and I have it set up so everything works seamlessly regardless of which machine I'm on. This is a "production environment", not a "demonstration environment".)
The Windows 8 problem is really quite simple. The "benefits" will be seen by nobody, but the disadvantages will be felt by almost everybody. Every user who must access the machine primarily (or exclusively) with a keyboard and mouse will register a net inconvenience. And that isn't going to change in a hurry.
In 10 years' time, perhaps, a much larger proportion of the market will be touchscreen tablets, and – perhaps sooner than that – the Metro desktop may have matured a bit. Metro might even have a full set of Common Dialog Boxes by then – who knows? But even then it won't be as productive for many of us as Windows 7 is today. We want computers to get out of the way. Those other 50 per cent will still be using the traditional rich GUI desktop to get anything done.
Here's how one reader expressed it:
The Metro interface without touch is painful and annoying. Like you, I'd love to see the clan in Redmond figure out that if a touch screen is detected at time of install, the Metro interface is default, whereas if no touch interface is present, it would give you the choice of interface/desktop to use. It's not rocket science, really. I also agreed that the gains made in Win 8 speed and responsiveness were great. Like you said, we just need to put a bag on the Metro team and get them to realise that the majority of Windows users will still be deploying to desktop/laptop devices that are not touch-enabled.
But Microsoft sources tell me that it's non-negotiable. They also shed light on the strange, twisty logic that is impelling Microsoft to its fate.
The strategic thinking goes like this: Microsoft needs brute force to coerce a touch-based "ecosystem" into existence, and it's using Windows as the battering ram. Microsoft fears that if it loses "touch" to the iPad and iPhone and Android, then it loses its place in the consumer space altogether. These tablets are increasingly capable of content creation, it notes. And because of this, Microsoft is going to force-feed Windows 8 to millions of PC users on non-touch devices, for whom Metro is nothing but a hindrance, in the hope that the market provides content and applications "designed for Metro".
All this has consequences, though.
One analyst tweeted that Windows 8 will give a big benefit to Windows Phone – which must be music to Microsoft's ears, for WP is currently in the doldrums and needs a lift. But this reflects the theory rather than the reality. I see it working both ways. Users who have a bad time on Windows 8 aren't going to take a closer look at Windows Phone. The desktop experience may then act as a weird kind of aversion therapy.
If Metro 8 is not decoupled from the central non-touch Windows UX, then enterprises will simply shun the upgrade. They don't have the budgets to retrain their staff. In the days when you were moving thousands of people from DOS to Windows, you could argue for a bigger training budget. But the cost/benefit advantage just isn't there in Windows 8. Microsoft doesn't have the power to move its market in the way Apple can – the market would prefer to shun the upgrade, as it did with Vista.
Paul Thurrott of WinSuperSite goes further:
"Inside Microsoft, there is a related fixation on whether Windows 8 will succeed and, yes, there is a contingent of people stuck in a paradoxical position: They understand that the success of Microsoft is inexorably linked to Windows, and thus that Windows 8 must succeed. But they desperately want Steven Sinofsky, and thus Windows 8, to fail. That both can't happen is of course the unresolvable issue," he writes.
I haven't found that sentiment. Nobody I've spoken to wants Windows 8 to fail. But everyone expects it to fail in the enterprise, and fail so badly that it will make Vista look like a gentle hiccup. (Not tho' the soldier knew/Someone had blunder'd):
This is all quite puzzling. We must assume the Metro-centric core of Microsoft executives is thinking rationally. We must assume they have done some maths. Which means Microsoft is at least prepared to forgo the revenue that comes from one enterprise Windows upgrade cycle, just to jam Metro into the public consciousness in the long term.
Perhaps Microsoft has justified this with the thought that the mere $4.74bn in quarterly revenues that the Windows division brings in is fairly inelastic – it won't vary much whether Windows is a hit or a flop - and that OEMs have to keep building and buying PCs. So it must have also reckoned that it can afford to take a hit in the short term to preserve Microsoft's relevance in the long term. Perhaps this isn't so crazy. Microsoft's Entertainment division (led by Xbox) now makes almost as much money as Windows.
This, then, appears to be Microsoft's gamble. I just wonder if it has revealed all this to the shareholders? Perhaps it should.
Meanwhile the Metro boat sails steadily on to its fate. Better get the popcorn in. ®
All these posters and tech 'journalists' do not know how without the START button, so they are lost and think it is gone.
Nice research....or is it disinformation?
I installed win8 CP in a VirtualBox image, once I got rid of Metro UI, it really is a minor evolution from Win7, I see very few theoretical needs for Corporate environment licensees to upgrade any time soon.
My more satirical side says that any new employee who requires win8 Metro UI and touchscreen to properly perform their job function should be immediately fired and replaced by a competent human being.
I used to sell touchscreen kiosks for retail/medical/kiosk industry niche, I don’t see any benefit to Metro UI for those applications. Many of the existing (Windows universe) touchscreen suites will be ported, but they almost all use custom UI overlays or are integrated into a WinNT compatible interfaces already.
My first reaction to Metro UI was a memory of how Office Suite 2000 introduced simpler slide transitions for PowerPoint and Microsoft used that as a selling point for the entire suite. For the 80%+ of Office users who never or rarely used PP, it had added no benefit.
I’m an industrial-level PC user. Have been for decades. Among other things, I write Windows optimization tools for my PC support business. And I use dozens of free 3rd party tools, and I need 1-2 click access to them constantly. So I installed W8 Consumer Preview on VirtualBox in order to get a jump on porting my applications to W8. Metro UI is a total nightmare for anything but a tablet device. Impossible to get anything done. And you can’t bypass it. Best you can do is take the extra step to go to the normal desktop. But even here, no Start button. Thus it is totally impossible to do anything at all on Windows 8 for an enterprise user! And the real irony? W8 Metro UI is a mediocre tablet interface that will run only on tablets that have 2-3 gigbytes of RAM and at least 20 gig hard drive! Anybody know about any tablets like that?
My advice? Be prepared to buy some 1 year LEAP PUTS on Microsoft if they actually release this piece of crap into the marketplace like it is now. Enterprise will shun it and mom and pop buyers at Best Buy will be so befuddled by what they see when they open up their shiny new W8 PC when they get home, they’ll probably turn right back around and ask for a refund. While you’re at it, you could short Dell, Intel, HP, and a whole bunch of others dependent upon W8. I’m serious. What you have shaping up here is the next New Coke or Edsel. Actually, I predict much worse. W8 is gonna make Vista look like one of the all-time brilliant marketing strategies! (BTW, Volt doesn’t count as a comparison because it’s not a free-market product from a free-market company.)
(BTW, I was finally able to get some work done on W8 when I installed ViStart, a free third party “Start” menu emulator. It’s not as good as “Classic Start Menu”, which I routinely use on Vista and W7, but CSM isn’t ready yet for W8, and ViStart is better than no Start at all.)
(Also, if you ever manage to find out how to get into Safe Mode (since F8 no longer works in W8) you’ll find you enter right into the traditional desktop, bypassing Metro UI. I guess MS figures if you have to go to Safe Mode, you can be screwing around with a Fisher-Price interface for 3-year olds. Still no Start menu though.)
(Another dirty little secret is MS won’t allow any apps to be installed on Metro unless you obtain a certificate from them! And supposedly Metro apps can only be written in C++!)
Note on my above post, I am using the win8 CP on a non-touchscreen desktop.
Rainmeter is already building a custom UI to replace Metro.
winServer2008r2 can use Aero.
Just copy the Aero files over from a Win7Pro or higher add a few lines in registry and regserver the files.
I’ve never used this but I did install it twice.
Aero themes:
http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/win2008r2/themes
Aero cursors:
http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/win2008r2/aero-cursors
Vista/7 sidebar:
http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/win2008r2/sidebar
I hear ya, but the new generation of computer users want a touch interface. CxOs are bring their iPad into work and demanding the IT guys figure out how to support it on their network.
Touch is here to stay for a long time, so get used to it or at least act like you understand it if you work in the IT field.
Further proof of why IT should have ZERO input on the rest of the operation.
These are the bozos who created fiefdoms in many corporations, strangling any freedom and limiting everything you can possibly do because they trust NOBODY with technology except themselves.
But at least your post was satire.
Microsoft has a built in market share that is rotting their brains.
“These are the bozos who created fiefdoms in many corporations, strangling any freedom and limiting everything you can possibly do because they trust NOBODY with technology except themselves.”
Cool...you work at a building where the maintenance department will let any employee go down to the basement and dink around with the HVAC system? If your business has a pool are you allowed to mess with the chlorine levels? Can you want into accounting and sort the paperwork anyway you feel like a day before an audit? Do you have any idea how ignorant you sound?
I only use windows two....one on the left wall, and the other in front of my desk.
Lol....what? Who admins on the server?
Huh? I was suggesting that Microsoft does in fact release different interfaces based on need.
But I do know some admins TS.
I just put up a review for a $99 dollar tablet. The author seemed to think that it was this kind of hardware that is the future for business.
Just like going from XP to 7. No more!
I know IT departments who chose the accounting software because accountants could not be trusted to choose what would work best for them.
I know IT departments who refused to allow a tie-in between production controls and the servers, forcing manual data collection to continue because they feared unfamiliar connections.
I know IT departments who controlled the creation of proprietary sales software (CRM) without allowing the sales department to provide any input.
I know IT departments who refuse to upgrade hardware so everyone ran on the same systems, even if it was outdated.
You are naive if you do not recognize how some IT departments used their knowledge to buffalo companies into making the IT job easier and everyone else's job more difficult.
IT is like accounting, they are mostly a service group inside a company with an advisory function ---- not a controlling function.
That is starting to change today as people become more tech-saavy.
Note: You can switch back to the “old” desktop in Win8 if you can’t handle Metro.
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