What's new

Windows 8, Usability disaster (2 Viewers)

Sam Posten

Moderator
Premium
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 30, 1997
Messages
33,671
Location
Aberdeen, MD & Navesink, NJ
Real Name
Sam Posten
No I will not even try to teach my parents how to use this:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/17/my-father-vs-windows-8/
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/final-thoughts-on-windows-8-a-design-disaster/20706
I don't get it. At all.
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Microsoft is famous for lousy operating systems, it's like we're all beta testers until they come out with the "real" version a year or two later. I learned years ago to never buy a new MS product until it's been out for a long time as ultimately many of them fail.
Steve, I must congratulate you on still runing Vista, you're the only person I've ever heard of that still is. Never used it, but always thought it was on of their major bombs that never caught on.
I just bought a new laptop with Windows 7 when the hard drive croaked on my last one (7 years old). Could have gotten a new drive, but with XP Professional dropping off the support list in a year or two, decided it was time to upgrade. Hope I made the right choice.
Windows 8 is way down my shopping list, read a lot about 7 before I purchased and it seems to pretty stable. 8 would be a huge gamble.
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Kevin Hewell said:
I'm still on Vista and don't have a problem with it.
Glad things are working out for you. For the most part Vista was quietly put away and not talked about much. I've got several friends who had it and had nothing but problems.
I've gone back to school, taking classes here and there at three different colleges, all of them running Windows 7, won't find a Vista machine on any of their campuses. Everyone of them had XP, totally skipped Vista and went straight to Windows 7.
Not saying you bought a dud OS, but you seem to be one of the lucky ones.
 

Patrick_S

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 1, 2000
Messages
3,313
Count me as another who sill has a Vista running on a machine. I was not lucky, I simply know what I'm doing.
 

Patrick_S

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 1, 2000
Messages
3,313
Also, I will be upgrading at least one of my computers to 8. I know the UI is different but I should be about to figure it out in a minute or two.
 

Steve_Pannell

Supporting Actor
Joined
Feb 4, 2003
Messages
734
Location
New Albany, MS
Real Name
Steve
Patrick_S said:
Count me as another who sill has a Vista running on a machine. I was not lucky, I simply know what I'm doing.
This speaks volumes.
Even though there are doubtless many issues with Vista, a lot of the "problems" are self-inflicted. I speak from experience. :D
 

mattCR

Reviewer
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2005
Messages
10,897
Location
Lee Summit, Missouri
Real Name
Matt
There are several problems with these articles.

(1) Right now, Windows8 is in a preview beta, and more then that, he isn't even using the most recent version... not that I'd know or anything.. but I'm just saying.. it isn't the most recent. :)
(2) There is a tutorial package that comes with it, and it's quick. More hten that, several manufacturers are shipping ready to launch Windows8 machines in the fall that are touch based laptops, which is the heart and soul of Wndows8.
(3) Whenever there is a big change in OS, people complain. When OSX was announced, there were WEEKS of people bitching that font changes and system changes from OS9 destroyed apps, made it unusable it as "difficult to navigate" and lacked basic functionality that was in OS9. Those complaints died after a while, but they dogged OSX10.0, 10.1... Puma was considered such a problem that vendors bailed. 10.2 covered most of those problems. In the end, anytime you introduce a major shift in the way things function, you are going to get people to complain.

The thing is, people clamor for "Windows is stodgy, it's always the same thing, the start menu method has stayed the same for basically a decade, there are no major UI changes" to MS introducing major UI changes "why did they do this! No one is going to understand these changes!"

I've worked with Windows8 on a daily level now, and there are issues I have with it. However, I have to tell you, a large number of the changes are not only appreciated, the more you use them the more you find it can change the way you operate. Multiple screen management and display orientation changes are significantly improved over anything MS has done before, and it's fluidity of response is incredible.. boot time on Windows 8 as well as file system "snappiness" even in a Beta is very impressive.

I picture Windows8 is going to have an interesting start, with early adopters being those who grab touch screen ultrabooks, of which several will be released. It is a big change, but judging by some anecdotal evidence of one guy's dad and saying "everything sucks" is a pretty bad way to look at anything. If we did that, we'd never have OSX Lion :)
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Patrick_S said:
Count me as another who sill has a Vista running on a machine. I was not lucky, I simply know what I'm doing.
Knowing what you're doing is a big plus. I've worked in IT for over 20 years but actually have never even touched a machine running Vista, just basing my opinions on trouble friends and others have had.
Like you, I'd probably do just fine with it and usually know how to get things working properly. But people don't want that any longer. They want to open a box, plug in their new computer, follow six simple steps to install and expect everything to be perfect forever more.
As you must obviously know, that's not always the case.
I just hear about so few people running Vista I kind of compare it to "Microsoft Bob", which was an absolutely ludicrous system that bombed immediately. I got a free version at a Microsoft conference many years ago, installed it, dumped it and reinstalled my old OS two days later.
Good to hear that people are having success with Vista. But as Microsoft treats everybody, soon they won't support the system and they basically force you to upgrade. Microsoft told me XP support will end next year. With Vista being newer, hopefully they'll support it for a few more years.
I got by with XP Professional for the past seven years, but when my hard drive crashed about six weeks ago, I just decided it wasn't worth repairing and got a new HP laptop running Windows 7. Blew my home theater budget, but these days you need a working computer. But there is no way I'm upgrading to Windows 8 until it's been out and stable for a year or two. And with good old Moore's rule, it's quite possible my one week old laptop may not even run it.
 

Cees Alons

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 31, 1997
Messages
19,789
Real Name
Cees Alons
Originally Posted by mattCR /t/321628/windows-8-usability-disaster#post_3951996
There are several problems with these articles.

(1) Right now, Windows8 is in a preview beta, and more then that, he isn't even using the most recent version... not that I'd know or anything.. but I'm just saying.. it isn't the most recent. :)
(2) There is a tutorial package that comes with it, and it's quick. More hten that, several manufacturers are shipping ready to launch Windows8 machines in the fall that are touch based laptops, which is the heart and soul of Wndows8.
(3) Whenever there is a big change in OS, people complain. When OSX was announced, there were WEEKS of people bitching that font changes and system changes from OS9 destroyed apps, made it unusable it as "difficult to navigate" and lacked basic functionality that was in OS9. Those complaints died after a while, but they dogged OSX10.0, 10.1... Puma was considered such a problem that vendors bailed. 10.2 covered most of those problems. In the end, anytime you introduce a major shift in the way things function, you are going to get people to complain.

The thing is, people clamor for "Windows is stodgy, it's always the same thing, the start menu method has stayed the same for basically a decade, there are no major UI changes" to MS introducing major UI changes "why did they do this! No one is going to understand these changes!"

I've worked with Windows8 on a daily level now, and there are issues I have with it. However, I have to tell you, a large number of the changes are not only appreciated, the more you use them the more you find it can change the way you operate. Multiple screen management and display orientation changes are significantly improved over anything MS has done before, and it's fluidity of response is incredible.. boot time on Windows 8 as well as file system "snappiness" even in a Beta is very impressive.

I picture Windows8 is going to have an interesting start, with early adopters being those who grab touch screen ultrabooks, of which several will be released. It is a big change, but judging by some anecdotal evidence of one guy's dad and saying "everything sucks" is a pretty bad way to look at anything. If we did that, we'd never have OSX Lion :)

I agree.

I haven't worked with W8 "on a daily level now", certainly not. But I've seen and worked with some of it, and what I've seen looks very promising.
One of my next machines may be a tablet - and I decided not to buy the skimpy DELL tablet with W7 on it I first thought of getting to give me the "feeling". I'm waiting for a W8 version in stead.

(Oh, and my wife owns a laptop with Vista on it. She's doing fine, with a little help from me.)


Cees
 

Sam Posten

Moderator
Premium
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 30, 1997
Messages
33,671
Location
Aberdeen, MD & Navesink, NJ
Real Name
Sam Posten
Gabe Newell is hedging his bets, with Linux?!?!?!
arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/steams-newell-windows-8-catastrophe-driving-valve-to-embrace-linux/
 

Sam Posten

Moderator
Premium
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 30, 1997
Messages
33,671
Location
Aberdeen, MD & Navesink, NJ
Real Name
Sam Posten
Forget the desktop hate, maybe it's not even that good as a tablet OS?
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/does-windows-8-succeed-as-a-true-tablet-operating-system/
 

Sam Posten

Moderator
Premium
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 30, 1997
Messages
33,671
Location
Aberdeen, MD & Navesink, NJ
Real Name
Sam Posten
If this is the default desktop background it is AWFUL.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/260884/windows_8_install_and_test_drive_welcome_to_microsofts_brave_new_world.html
 

Sam Posten

Moderator
Premium
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 30, 1997
Messages
33,671
Location
Aberdeen, MD & Navesink, NJ
Real Name
Sam Posten
You may be on to something there. By choosing something awful they reverse psychologify you into choosing your own!
EVERYONE can download a 90 day trial starting today. Enterprise version tho, beware!
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3244994/windows-8-trial-download-90-days-enterprise
 

schan1269

HTF Expert
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
Messages
17,104
Location
Chicago-ish/NW Indiana
Real Name
Sam
I used to work for a "major automotive outlet" and was given the Pirelli Calendar a few years. It wasn't "given directly" to me, it was more of a funnel down the line to the person willing to actually put it up in their office.
When I ran a truck tire shop, where kids were never there, I put it up in the showroom. Made the process of waiting for tires a bit nicer.
I have the coffee table book.
 

Walter Kittel

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Dec 28, 1998
Messages
9,753
Not awful at all. (IMHO) If you examine the wall paper I cycle through probably 60 percent is floral.
- Walter.
 

Sam Posten

Moderator
Premium
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 30, 1997
Messages
33,671
Location
Aberdeen, MD & Navesink, NJ
Real Name
Sam Posten
For the record my first upgrade was a disaster last night. Downloaded the ISO, ran through the process, it rebooted and never came back.
Stuch at a black screen with infinite scrolling white swirly beachball type animation.
I rebooted a bunch of times, it gave me 3 choices, Windows 8, Windows 8 upgrade, and Windows Seven.
Only going back to Windows 7 and undoing anything got me anything but the black screen of death.
If it's a machine you care about BACKUP EVERYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT before attempting this.... Don't think I lost anything, this machine is simply a life support system for Steam, but still, frustrating.
BLEH.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Forum statistics

Threads
356,710
Messages
5,121,132
Members
144,146
Latest member
SaladinNagasawa
Recent bookmarks
0
Top