I just recently heard of Microsoft Bob, and I thought it was a parody!
No, seriously, here’s my problem with Metro:
I like the customizability of the Windows interface. I don’t really want my computer to look like every other Windows computer. I also want a computer that’s useful for doing work: creative things, like web design, photoshop, and so forth. It’s normal for me to have multiple folders open and multiple files open in Notepad; or to have an image editor open while also playing YouTube on a browser; to be edting, creating, and deleting files all the time. Anything which makes that harder to do is not Windows, it’s a waste.
Windows XP was a better system overall than 98 and ME. But it seemed more conformity-oriented than ME, less customizable. I wish I could give Windows Explorer in XP my old tiny information bars like I coded (using html) in ME, but I never learned to hack XP to do it. Windows 7 won’t even let me click on multiple files and open them in Photoshop–unless I do it from Photoshop, which is slower. There’s a way to make the computer allow it, but not one a mere graphic artist/html coder can find.
I’m already finding Windows Explorer in Windows 7 to be frankly dysfunctional; it won’t delete files that are “open in another program”–except when it will–but sometimes it thinks Windows Explorer–itself!–is “another program.” So I can’t delete a file until I reboot Explorer. That’s a basic interface failure for the way I use Windows.
Will this be fixed in Windows 8? I see no reason to expect that it will.
The more PC’s become smartphones, the less PC functionality they have.
So when I see Windows 8, it just looks like they’re going further in the direction of “all will look the same” and “one file open at a time.” I hope I’m wrong. Sounds like I’m not.
Sure looks like it, eh? Bill Gates’ wife Melinda was a major project leader. I think you can see where some of the problems crept in.
It is pretty broken. But there are some fixes for your problem. First, the reason why explorer has a lock on your files is often because of the thumbnail generation. If you don’t care about picture thumbnails, try turning that off and see if anything improves.
Beyond that, there is a program called simply Unlocker that will remove file locks and allow you to delete your files. It’s kinda silly that it’s required, but nevertheless it works well.
Unfortunately, yes. The very notion of a filesystem seems to be going away. The majority of the computing public never understood hierarchical folders, so this isn’t surprising. For the rest of us it’s a great loss.
I’m sorry. I’m not a tech guy. I don’t want to have to learn to rewrite the operating system. I do want to be able to create and manage hierarchical folders of organized images, html pages, programs, and the like–whether for web design or just on the disk for my own reference. You know, what WIMP systems have always done. I would like to be able to do it the same way I have been doing it for a decade. That way works pretty well.
Make it harder, and it feels like you’re playing to people who are either much more or much less engaged with the tech.
The more I’ve been reading about it, the more I agree with this. None of my computers comes with a touch screen and I’m one of those strange people who aren’t afraid to admit they game, who know how to tell wether the “CD” is a CD, DVD or Blue-Ray drive, and who are perfectly happy with nested folders.
The columns of icons make me think of the current Windows media player (whatever it’s actually called), which looks pretty but is shit at managing my songs library. I don’t want that to happen with my programs.
Is this for real? Thumbnail generation is more important than the user being able to use their computer?
Cripes.
Do they still have spaces in all those folder names?
Y’know, I’ve never (TTBOMK) run into this. but even if evidence points to “Windows Explorer” having a lock on a file, it could very well not be Explorer’s fault. See, when you install programs that do things like add stuff to the right-click menu in an Explorer window, those plugins/shell extensions are actually loading code into the explorer.exe process. If that plugin/extension code effs up, it appears to an observer that explorer.exe is the culprit.
This is by-and-large why web browsers are using (or moving to) isolation and containers for plugins.
Well, I’d argue that it’s Explorer’s fault for allowing such behavior in the first place. But yeah, in general, you can’t do much about some rogue program keeping a lock on a file. Hence programs like Unlocker. Anyway, you’re right that browsers at least are moving to a sandbox model, but it’s way too late IMHO.
As for the thumbnail generation, it’s mainly only a problem within the first few seconds of accessing a folder. Once the thumbnails are built, the lock disappears. However, I’ve seen that sometimes the lock is held indefinitely for network shares. The usual scenario is that I copy some pictures to a network drive, and then try to move/delete the folder on the server computer. The client computer has somehow retained a lock and the server ends up complaining to me.
It’s just bad design. The thumbnail generation should be interruptible.
Mostly, though there’s nothing wrong with that aside from bring overly verbose. Some stuff has been trimmed down over the years; Vista changed “Documents and Settings” to simply “Users” (which is more accurate anyway).
Software that doesn’t deal with spaces in filenames/folders correctly is broken. Which is part of the reason Microsoft put everything in “Program Files” in the first place–to force apps to deal with it correctly (shockingly, some still don’t).
well, you could (legitimately) make that argument, but that ship sailed back before internet connectivity was a given. most people’s systems weren’t regularly exposed to malicious code back then.
But seriously, an OS should just get out of the way so I can use the software. Anybody who gets excited about OS “upgrades” is being fooled by marketing. Windows 8 doesn’t have anything special I can tell except an fledgling app store which is just a new monetization strategy for Microsoft. Unless you’re worried about Microsoft’s bottom line, why bother?
I like my OSes to be secure, stable and boring. Which is why I use Slackware.
