When did the Start button ever “open calculator?” you still had to click the start button, and if calculator wasn’t in the MRU list, you had to pore through the menus and find it. Or open the start menu and start typing “C-A-L..” and hit enter when it highlights “Calculator.”
With Windows 8 you can do one of the following:
open the start screen, right click and select “All Apps” and find “Calculator” under “Windows Accessories” (this would be analogous to having to find “Calculator” in the Win 7 start menu)
go to the start screen and start typing “C-A-L…” and hit enter when it highlights “Calculator” (no different than Windows 7)
do 1) above, but right click on “Calculator” and select “Pin to Start” (just like you could on Win 7)
Just pin Calculator to the taskbar and not worry about finding it (just like Windows 7.)
Yes, the Start screen is vividly different looking than the old Start Menu. But other than the appearance of the start screen, Win8 does not work much differently than Win7. People for some reason see the new start screen, freak out, and manage to find the most difficult way to try to do what they used to do. I have no idea why. It literally took me less than a day to get used to Windows 8. But then again, I knew it was going to be different so I took a tiny bit of time to figure out what was different. Much more productive than screaming about how Bill Gate$ is taking all of my toys away.
This I will happily agree with. Windows 8 works much faster than previous versions. If that had been the main change Microsoft had made, it would have been a success.
But now you’re sounding like a Dvorak keyboard promoter. You’re arguing that Dvorak works better in theory than the Qwerty and the only reason people prefer Qwerty is because they’ve been using Qwerty for twenty years.
Well, yes, that’s the reason why Qwerty is better.
Microsoft has spent a couple of decades establishing certain procedures. Computer users have learned those procedures. Why the hell would Microsoft think we’d want to throw out everything we know how to do and start over again? For a new system that doesn’t appear to be significantly better? This is as stupid as Ford deciding it’s going to start putting the brake petal on the right side.
As for the idea that Windows 8 will grow on me as I get used to it, I’ll repeat the question I asked the last time this was offered. Do you think my laptop is going to spontaneously develop touch screen capability? I don’t foresee that happening. And if it doesn’t happen, I’ll always be stuck with a system that wasn’t designed for my computer. Why would Microsoft develop an operating system designed around touch screens and then think it was a good idea to insist it be factory installed on computers that don’t have touch screen capability? It’s like they designed this product to fail.
Even if you like Windows 8, you shouldn’t fall in love with it. Because it’s not going to be around. Microsoft has all be admitted that 8.1 will change things back to the way they were with 7.
Indeed. Otherwise, I’d still be using Windows 98 since it still had MS-DOS (I occasionally play old games) and apart from that was exactly as satisfying as all the later versions.
OK, not true in fact because news softwares run only on more recent versions of windows. But that’s because people nowadays only use these newer versions, and they use these newer versions only because computers are sold with them.
BTW, my mother intends to buy a new computer, and since she’s 87 yo, I believe this major interface change will be a serious problem for her. I suspect she might give up using it.
It’s unfortunate that people are avoiding the surface; I have a Pro and it’s absolutely fantastic. Windows 8 is a perfect OS for a tablet-laptop hybrid. That said, I imagine it would take a bit more getting used to on a desktop. I really don’t see where most of the complaints are coming from though. It’s ten times faster for me to press the Win key and type the first two letters of the program I want to open than to click on the start button, pore through lots and lots of categories, and then finally find the program I want and click on it. In fact, when I’m on my Win7 desktop, I just go to the start menu and type the name of what I want… which is exactly the same as what I do on my Surface.
Really, my only complaints are that the Program Files folders are locked down (they might have been on Win7 as well; I disabled UAC) and that I have some extra clicking to do in order to find the power button. Other than that, Win 8 has not been much of a transition.
There’s not a chance they’ll get rid of the start screen and apps. The most they’re likely to do in terms of the GUI is put the start button back, but it’ll lead to the current start screen. They may well add shutdown and restart to this as well. Like most people. I’d prefer the old-style start menu, but as it’s so easy to add it in it really doesn’t matter to me what they do.
I seriously doubt they’ll get rid of the actual improvements they’ve made to Windows with 8, either.
It’s not designed solely for touch screens. It works just as well with mouse and keyboard as any previous version of Windows - with one, admittedly important exception, but one I seriously doubt applies to you.
That exception is tech support people doing remote desktop access over slow connections, where the pointer lag makes it extremely awkward to find the charms, especially on a multiple monitor setup.
Also, you’ve been told several times how to get your start menu back. Why haven’t you done so, and used that program (Classic Shell, if you’ve forgotten) to enable boot to desktop, rather than bitching about a minor cosmetic change?
Ah, yeah, that’s an actual problem with Windows 8. You either have to hack it to run without UAC at all (which isn’t a particularly good idea, and has the side effect of stopping full-screen Apps running at all*), do some sort of hack to give users permission to access these files, or my personal choice - run a third party file manager as admin.
All those hotkeys and shortcuts change by language/location combo, a peeve I’ve had since I first encountered Microsoft’s localization policies. And there is never a manual or something like that, you have to ask other people.
Being as Microsoft has put the Start screen forward as the central pillar of its new system, I think it’s fair to judge the new system by whether or not the Start screen is a good idea.
I’m not predicting Microsoft is going to eliminate Start Screen. I’m just predicting they’re going to bury it. 8.1 will give you the option of booting directly to the Desktop screen. A lot of people are going to just use that and never look at the Start screen. It’ll still be there but people will be able to ignore it.
As for Microsoft’s spin on this, what do you expect them to say? Do you think they’re going to talk about how their new product is floundering when they don’t have the replacement ready to sell yet? But the speed with which they are pushing 8.1 forward along with the press releases they’re giving in which they emphasize how 8.1 will restore old features is as close to an open admission of error as a corporation will allow itself. They’re giving Windows 8 the New Coke treatment.
A couple of years from now, when 8.1 is out there and 8’s no longer the product they’re trying to sell, Microsoft will admit that 8 was a blunder.
An OS that can handle touch and keyboard/mouse input with equal ease is not just a good idea, it’s soon going to be a necessity.
What are you basing that prediction on? Nothing that’s come out of Microsoft suggests that, and as Windows 8 currently has a greater share of tablet OS use than computers, I doubt they’ll de-optimise it for them… They will probably improve it’s usability for desktop users, including allowing smaller icons and better grouping. If this works, it might well get me to use that screen more.
My prediction is that casual computer users will, in a few years at most, mainly use the Apps, with the actual desktop being used by more hardcore users. I noticed when looking up what has been said about 8.1 that a new calculator app on the start screen is one of them!
The only things that have been suggested as restored old features are boot-to-desktop, and a start button that will go to the start screen, in place of the start charm. Other that those, I don’t think there’s any missing features that anyone even cares about*, let alone ones that will be replaced by Microsoft.
8.1 is an upgrade to 8, not a new OS. It’s not like people stopped talking about XP after Service Pack 2…
*With the possible exception of native DVD playing functionality, but I’ve yet to hear of a system shipped with a DVD drive, but without playback software.
Not really - it is better, because computer processing power is now sufficient that indexing and instantaneous searching is very comfortably possible.
I switched from XP to Windows 8 a couple of months ago. At first, I hated the loss of the Start menu - it’s trivially easy to install a third party replacement for it, but I decided I would just try and do without for a while - just to see how big a problem it would be.
And it turned out that, once I acquired the habit of hitting <Start> and begin typing the name of the thing I’m after, it’s actually better - objectively better.
I have a lot of installed software - on XP, all this stuff was in the Start menu, but it was awkward to find - clicking Start>Programs would bring up a submenu that extended to three columns across the screen - and the actual programs themselves were often nested a further level down inside one of the items listed in these three columns - and the menu is prone to collapsing when you navigate down through nested levels.
On Win8, I have just as many applications installed - and finding them is quicker (shorter in time and number of actions), and the chance of finding/launching the wrong things is considerably smaller.
The Metro Start page certainly is designed to work with touch, but touch screens aren’t by any means essential to use it. This really seems a bit of a lame objection - just use it with a mouse like you always have - if you bother using Metro at all (you don’t have to).
The forthcoming feature and service pack for Win8 will supposedly give back the Start menu and give an option to boot direct to desktop - MS has caved to pressure from people who want things to be the way they always were. Of course that’s right - they’re the customers, but I think it’s a shame - the big problem with Win8 is not Win8 - it’s that people don’t get Win8.
You switched from Windows XP straight to 8. I’m guessing the stuff you like about 8 was already in 7.
Windows 7 already had the ability to launch programs by starting to type the name. The difference is it had other options as well.
Sure, typing the name is a very good method which already existed. But maybe you want to use a mouse instead of the keyboard. Maybe you want to use a jump list. Maybe for a specific program with complex structure you prefer to use a nested list. Maybe you don’t know the name. Maybe you want to launch without covering up what you are looking at. And so on.
All of these options can be allowed. This entire narrative that Microsoft had to forbid users from using jump lists, start menu pinning, boot to desktop, searching and launching without covering up what they are doing, turning off pop ups, etc, is a complete lie.
It can all very, very easily be allowed at once. They could even have put the old start menu in as a toolbar which doesn’t appear by default. It is ridiculously easy to allow more options instead of deleting options. They just chose not to.
the worst thing about disabling UAC is that it also disables most of the security features in Internet Explorer. Disabling UAC is totally frickin’ stupid and you deserve what you get if you do so.
you’re loony. The Developer Preview had a Start button on the taskbar which invoked the Start Screen (I know it did, I used it.) the button was removed for the Consumer Preview. The all-but-confirmed rumor is that the Start button on the taskbar is coming back, but like the DP it’ll just invoke the start screen. That’s not “burying it.”
You sound like all those people out there who don’t realize (or refuse to accept) that Windows 7 really and truly is Windows Vista R2. Seriously, the actual difference between Vista and 7 is fairly minor.
because my computer doesn’t have a touchscreen and thus I’m using it with a fucking keyboard? If you’re not using it with a keyboard, swipe from the right edge of the screen to bring up the charms, and there’s your fucking Start button.
I don’t think you’re remotely capable of making that kind of assessment.
At home, I switched from XP to 8. At work, I’ve been using Windows 7 for quite a while.
Because the Start menu was there, I never really discovered Win7’s ability to search - I just carried on doing things the same way as before.
<shrug>OK, maybe.
Win8 still has Jump Lists, but yeah, I use them in Win7 in the Start menu (specifically for MS Office applications), so I guess that is a loss of function.
Not really getting you here - what program would need a nested list of shortcuts to launch it?
That’s going to kind of impede you finding it anywhere, including the Start Menu.
Maybe, but does that ever happen? Sounds like an imaginary problem.
And now they’re going to do that, which is probably in some ways good, but it will also stagnate progress and change.
-Open the Win 8 Start Screen.
-Delete absolutely all of the crap that is there by default.
-Search up the stuff you actually use.
-Right click it and select “pin to start”.
Once you do that, and then change the default apps for absolutely all the file types on your computer so that they open in a sensible desktop application and not some insane fullscreen “metro” alternative, and then turn off the password and login screens, Win 8 starts to feel OK.