Friday, June 28th 2013
Windows 8.1, and Why You Should Let Go of Windows 7
When Steve Jobs went upstage in early-April 2010 to unveil the iPad, it was expected to be the next logical step to Apple's successful miniaturization of the MacBook to the category-defining MacBook Air. It was expected to be an OS X-based handheld that ran on hardware not much different. When Jobs revealed the iPad to be an upscale of the iPhone idea, rather than a downscale of the MacBook idea, the industry was never the same again. The successful reception of the iOS on both the iPhone and iPad is what could have been the genesis of the Windows of today, which looks great on smartphones, tablets, and touch-enabled notebooks, but is hated on desktops, particularly by the PC enthusiast community. Much of that hatred is misdirected, and is a waste of time. Here's why.
While Microsoft Windows CE and Windows Phone powered PDAs for years before the smartphone revolution, Microsoft's most popular creation in the mobile space has been Windows Phone 7, and its successors. The brand new 'tile' interface, coupled with clear, finger-friendly, and forgiving UI elements finally gave Microsoft the UI design it was looking for. Rather than making a repeat of Apple's winning formula of upscaling Windows Phone 7 to a software for tablets (i.e. being content with Windows RT), Microsoft extended the UI to the entire Windows product family, including operating systems for the PC, and shockingly, even Windows Server. With the new Windows 8.1 Release Preview, it's clear that Microsoft isn't going back on the direction Windows 8 took, and so as PC enthusiasts, we're forced to ask ourselves if putting up a fight against it, by clinging on to Windows 7, is really worth it.
The Start Menu that never really left.
The guiding principle behind a tile-like UI on mainline PC operating systems isn't that people would drop their mice and stretch their arms out to the monitor (a touchscreen), and begin using their PCs that way. It was so the PC in itself could evolve. The biggest point of contention for PC enthusiasts refusing to upgrade to Windows 8 and its inevitable successor is the lack of a Start menu. Well, not sure if you noticed, but the Start menu never left. It's only not a menu anymore, it's a screen. When you click on the start button on older Windows desktops, whatever shows up as a result, has your undivided attention. You're either looking for a program to launch, a document you were just working on, or finding your way to the key areas of the operating system. Your business with the Start menu gets wrapped up in a few seconds. So why not stretch that Start "thing" to cover the entire screen, and make it more functional?
Submenus of the Windows XP Start menu stretched out to the entire height of the screen, and with enough items, you could practically fill the screen with an extremely collapsed Start menu. Ask yourself if a fullscreen Start screen is really that different, after all, when Microsoft shrunk the Start menu to a fixed-size one in Windows Vista, by dropping in a scroll-bar, it sparked outrage.
Finding programs, documents, or OS-related functions using the Start screen takes nearly the same time once you get the hang of it, and can actually be quicker. When people screamed from the rooftops asking for their familiar Start button back on the taskbar, Microsoft obliged. The upcoming Windows 8.1, which will be a free upgrade to current Windows 8 users, features a Start button, right where you expect it to be. Before you get excited, all it does is spawn up the Start screen. Windows 8.1 also features an option with which your computer starts up straight to the desktop, instead of the Start screen.
The Modern UI bloat that doesn't really exist.
Another point of contention for Start screen opponents is the modern UI apps that come included with the operating system constituting bloatware. Well, they don't. These are apps that tell you the weather, list out the headlines, track your stocks, and so on. The default set of apps that come with Windows 8 barely have a couple of dozen megabytes in memory footprint, which is made up for by an overall better memory management by Windows 8. Besides, enthusiast PCs begin at 4 GB of memory, 8 GB is considered mainstream for gaming PCs, and enthusiast builds are getting the whiff of 16 GB already. Plenty of room in there for an app that tells the weather.
The grass on the other side stays greener even after you get there.
With the Windows 8.1 Release Preview we got to play with, Microsoft made it clear that it's not going to make steps backwards. There's "a" Start button, not "the" Start button. What shows up after you click it is bigger and better than its predecessor's Start screen. There are new tile-size options, including "large" (double the area of a medium tile), and "tiny" (a quarter of the area of a regular tile). The new "tiny" tile size is perfect for organizing shortcuts to scores of programs or games, the tiles have just enough room for a clear icon.
Windows 8.1, like its predecessor, starts up quicker than Windows 7 does. The kernel of the operating system never really shuts down, but hibernates, and wakes up in a snap each time you power up the PC. The new Storage Spaces, which is similar to Linux LDM, lets you better organize data across multiple physical hard drives.
Windows 8.1 introduces a new display driver model, WDDM 1.3. This brings with it a few new display features, including the standardization of wireless display, 48 Hz dynamic refresh rates for video playback, V-sync interrupt optimization, video conferencing acceleration, a Direct3D API feature so major, that it warrants a version number change. Introduced with DirectX 11.2, a new API feature called "tiled surfaces."
Tiled Surfaces is analogous to the OpenGL mega-textures technology demonstrated by id Software on "Rage," which helped it create vast, detailed, and smoothly animating 3D scenes. Instead of streaming textures as the scene is being rendered, mega-textures allows developers to deploy larger textures that are fewer in number, and dynamically show portions of it. These textures needn't be loaded to the video memory entirely, can stay on the disk, and the API would access portions of it as they become relevant to the scene, as it's being viewed. In essence, mega-texturing is a sort of "virtual-memory" for GPUs, and could shift focus from larger video memory to faster memory, in the upcoming generations of GPUs.
In conclusion
Suck it up. Windows for PC isn't going to change, and was always prone to significant change. Windows 95 was Microsoft's response to PCs that were firmly capable of GUI, at a time when people at large were getting the hang of using a mouse. Windows 8 and 8.1 are just as landmark, whether we like it or not. Microsoft is catering to a large mass of people that are getting the hang of a touchscreen, and prefer a uniform experience between devices both on the desk, and on the move. Improvements such as new "tiny" tiles make the Start screen just as functional and quick to use as a menu, and Microsoft isn't stopping with its innovations that will get increasingly out of reach for Windows 7 users.
The Start Menu that never really left.
The guiding principle behind a tile-like UI on mainline PC operating systems isn't that people would drop their mice and stretch their arms out to the monitor (a touchscreen), and begin using their PCs that way. It was so the PC in itself could evolve. The biggest point of contention for PC enthusiasts refusing to upgrade to Windows 8 and its inevitable successor is the lack of a Start menu. Well, not sure if you noticed, but the Start menu never left. It's only not a menu anymore, it's a screen. When you click on the start button on older Windows desktops, whatever shows up as a result, has your undivided attention. You're either looking for a program to launch, a document you were just working on, or finding your way to the key areas of the operating system. Your business with the Start menu gets wrapped up in a few seconds. So why not stretch that Start "thing" to cover the entire screen, and make it more functional?
Submenus of the Windows XP Start menu stretched out to the entire height of the screen, and with enough items, you could practically fill the screen with an extremely collapsed Start menu. Ask yourself if a fullscreen Start screen is really that different, after all, when Microsoft shrunk the Start menu to a fixed-size one in Windows Vista, by dropping in a scroll-bar, it sparked outrage.
Finding programs, documents, or OS-related functions using the Start screen takes nearly the same time once you get the hang of it, and can actually be quicker. When people screamed from the rooftops asking for their familiar Start button back on the taskbar, Microsoft obliged. The upcoming Windows 8.1, which will be a free upgrade to current Windows 8 users, features a Start button, right where you expect it to be. Before you get excited, all it does is spawn up the Start screen. Windows 8.1 also features an option with which your computer starts up straight to the desktop, instead of the Start screen.
The Modern UI bloat that doesn't really exist.
Another point of contention for Start screen opponents is the modern UI apps that come included with the operating system constituting bloatware. Well, they don't. These are apps that tell you the weather, list out the headlines, track your stocks, and so on. The default set of apps that come with Windows 8 barely have a couple of dozen megabytes in memory footprint, which is made up for by an overall better memory management by Windows 8. Besides, enthusiast PCs begin at 4 GB of memory, 8 GB is considered mainstream for gaming PCs, and enthusiast builds are getting the whiff of 16 GB already. Plenty of room in there for an app that tells the weather.
The grass on the other side stays greener even after you get there.
With the Windows 8.1 Release Preview we got to play with, Microsoft made it clear that it's not going to make steps backwards. There's "a" Start button, not "the" Start button. What shows up after you click it is bigger and better than its predecessor's Start screen. There are new tile-size options, including "large" (double the area of a medium tile), and "tiny" (a quarter of the area of a regular tile). The new "tiny" tile size is perfect for organizing shortcuts to scores of programs or games, the tiles have just enough room for a clear icon.
Windows 8.1, like its predecessor, starts up quicker than Windows 7 does. The kernel of the operating system never really shuts down, but hibernates, and wakes up in a snap each time you power up the PC. The new Storage Spaces, which is similar to Linux LDM, lets you better organize data across multiple physical hard drives.
Windows 8.1 introduces a new display driver model, WDDM 1.3. This brings with it a few new display features, including the standardization of wireless display, 48 Hz dynamic refresh rates for video playback, V-sync interrupt optimization, video conferencing acceleration, a Direct3D API feature so major, that it warrants a version number change. Introduced with DirectX 11.2, a new API feature called "tiled surfaces."
Tiled Surfaces is analogous to the OpenGL mega-textures technology demonstrated by id Software on "Rage," which helped it create vast, detailed, and smoothly animating 3D scenes. Instead of streaming textures as the scene is being rendered, mega-textures allows developers to deploy larger textures that are fewer in number, and dynamically show portions of it. These textures needn't be loaded to the video memory entirely, can stay on the disk, and the API would access portions of it as they become relevant to the scene, as it's being viewed. In essence, mega-texturing is a sort of "virtual-memory" for GPUs, and could shift focus from larger video memory to faster memory, in the upcoming generations of GPUs.
In conclusion
Suck it up. Windows for PC isn't going to change, and was always prone to significant change. Windows 95 was Microsoft's response to PCs that were firmly capable of GUI, at a time when people at large were getting the hang of using a mouse. Windows 8 and 8.1 are just as landmark, whether we like it or not. Microsoft is catering to a large mass of people that are getting the hang of a touchscreen, and prefer a uniform experience between devices both on the desk, and on the move. Improvements such as new "tiny" tiles make the Start screen just as functional and quick to use as a menu, and Microsoft isn't stopping with its innovations that will get increasingly out of reach for Windows 7 users.
353 Comments on Windows 8.1, and Why You Should Let Go of Windows 7
If you don't have a touch-enabled screen, Win8 is a horror. using it on a notebook with a sunken touchpad, I noticed that I couldn't get the swipes to be understood by the system half of the time.. and the other half of the time I'm alt-tabing out of applications because my thumb touched the track-pad a bit too much to the left.
Win8 is over-simplified.. even if it is a "smartphone OS" it is too simplistic. It's actually iOS level of simplistic. I don't want to only see which Wi-Fi networks are available, I want to refresh that list, because I know that my AP is up and running.. why do you make me wait Windows. See, in Win7, there's a refresh Icon. On my phone with Jelly Bean, there's a refresh button.. I don't need to wait for whenever some poopie engineer in Redmond thinks I'm ready to connect to my AP.
And the list goes on, It shows applications in the tile menu, that aren't actually installed. I like to see what my system is doing, not "15% of fuck-all finished"
The first Windows Updates you're installing after you've first restarted your system. Even wit the latest Haswell CPU, a 700 series GeForce and 16GB of RAM.. I'm staring at "15% complete" for 45 g-damn minutes.. really.. don't do this to me.. or at least tell me WHAT you're doing so I can comprehend.
This Apple like thinking "Oh, you don't need to know we're re-arranging some bits" is infuriating, at least tell me why you're so slow!
The whole over-simplification just simply doesn't work on a PC. even my mom&dad who've only recently started with a PC don't like Win8. Why? they like to see a picture of their grandchildren when the PC starts up and they need two icons on their desktop, one that brings them to Facebook and one that lets them play games. You know how much they care about the weather in Tahiti or current stock listings? exactly!
Win8 shows exactly what is wrong with opportunistic thinking and how you just can't steamroll a bad idea into the PC business, because after all, the PC Business is suffering, not only the users that want their Start menu back.
But still, specially for new computers with Windows 8 preinstalled, is easy to remove Metro as above and make Windows 8 more Windows 7-like with Windows 8 non-metro features. And then you get a wonderful OS with no or less usability issues... I understand that some people want to "boycott" MS to change their mentality but, sooner or later, you will be "forced", as happened from windows 98 to XP.
At least for me, the new features aside from Metro are worth it, specially the Fast Boot, and the overall performance improvements. But I understand not everyone needs them/likes them. And those things make people choose or not to choose upgrade.
Many thanks for the link. I will try to get a Windows 7 64 computer and get the files :)Yeah, Microsoft is acting like Apple, that's true. I prefer the openness of Android, Linux which are not too simple as iOS or Mac OS or Metro (even when Metro is sometimes more difficult. Though some people don't.
And while it might not be an 8 hour day of work, with all the programs I install right off the bat when I re-format my computer it does add up to about an hour of just sitting there searching for each program and pinning it to the start screen. That is an hour that I didn't have to waste before.
i don't like MS not giving me options. why can't i get to choose between a win 7-like start menu or modern ui? how hard can it be to provide that, MS? :shadedshu
but above all, coz autocad don't run well on win 8, so am sticking with win 7 :cool:
if and when i update to 8.1 when RTM is out, i think i will use the ClassicStart i got from ninite awhile back i like the button icon and easy to mod as i want...
Windows 8 has some good things but the UI is a huge step in the wrong direction
As many others have said it is optimized for touch, good thing the majority of enthusiast don't own a touch enabled monitor.
If i wanted a metro styled UI to fumble through i would just by an xbox.
They don't are care about customers, or usability of their OS. They just want to take more of our money, and that's what Windows 8 is all about. They see how apple and google sell all of their mobile apps through their own stores, and they want to bring this concept to the desktop. They will stop and nothing to make it happen. They don't care about the impact it has on us enthusiasts, because the public at large doesn't even care. They just want their phones and tablets and don't care about the desktop, and this is what these companies want. The desktop is not profitable for them anymore, so this is how MS plans to change that.
This article is funny, because it just doesn't see the bigger picture. Sure the start screen is just a full screen menu. But it doesn't look at why MS would do this. Why would they want us to use full screen "apps" on our desktop? So they can sell them to us.
What about traditional multi-tasking? I mean shouldn't Windows have you know, windows? I know I like to have many programs running at once, in separate windows that I can resize and place where I want. You cannot do that in Metro. It's a step backwards in desktop usability, all in the name of forcing people into tablets, which in turn will eventually turn Windows into a metro only mobile OS, all so they can make more money.
And what about multi-monitors? They will become useless. Windows 8 is starting us down a road of going backwards in usability.
8.1 seems to fix a few things, but the start button isn't still as functional as the original one, I'm happy with start is back, I hope I can still use it when I upgrade to 8.1
In no way, I can find Window's 8 task switching faster or more efficient. I've already discussed the idiocy of charms on the desktop (I constantly get that task charm, instead of the first icon in the bottom left TYVM), it only shows the application screen and not a big icon like on the traditional Windows desktop, so I have no idea if I'm clicking IE, FireFox or Chrome... and in the Metro interface it's a ridiculous number of swipes away.
Step 1, there is no step 1.
Step 2, there is no step 1.
You already have win7.
Screw that! I tried 8, I could not get used to it. I went from XP, to Vista, to 7 - I used all versions of Android, I used a BlackBerry, various simple UI's in lesser devices, and I never have any issues getting used to things, but when something isn't intuitive, then it stands out as a load of cr*p - and Windows 8 takes the crown for that ATM. 8.1 might be a step towards the right direction, but it's travelling on the wrong road, so it matters not.
So, to me, this is just a performance and DX update.