Windows 8 Snippets

[Steve]

Ok I found it on Macrumours but it looks like the next version of Windows will draw some features from the Windows mobile platform and also provide a form of App store. I think with the drive for digital distribution and 'touch' interfaces the end of the traditional desktop is in sight. Out with the desktop console and back with the piano.

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/18/microsofts-windows-8-to-include-an-app-store-too/

[Rik]

Bring back DOS, I say.

[Steve]

Uno Dos Tres

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-oH-TELcLE

[Rik]

I thought for a moment you were cueing Woolly Bully... 

[pctech]

digital distribution is great if you have a really speedy internet connection otherwise its a PITA.

[Steve]

I guess MS or Apple are not going to wait for the UK to get it's broadband up to speed and why should they.

The full blog is here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/

[pctech]

Because we are their customers and even Uncle Sam hasn't got its act together on broadband.

[pctech]

If win 8 becomes completely dependent on a remote server like those bloody awful Chromebooks I'll be switching to ReactOS I think.

[Gary]

digital distribution is great if you have a really speedy internet connection otherwise its a PITA.

For me to re-install Lion is an 1/5 hour download, tbh thats not bad and I tried it to see, thankfully in December our tiny exchange should get adsl 2+ and I have good line stats so things will get quicker. For ease of installation they are great, you can buy it even when the shops are shut, no costly packaging to make then rip open, so software gets cheaper and productions costs drop as you dont need plastic and cardboard and paper and printing overheads. I am sure this is the way things will go, just like downloaded music. For those with bad connections you can still get a copy if you want, but it may cost more (see lion USB stick install media which is almost double the cost)

[pctech]

I bought a game via steam and it took the best part of 12 hours but then my line stats suck.

[Steve]

It's the customers choice of hardware that's forcing the change imo,desktops sales are in decline and in the next few years we are going to see a large increase in the number of tablet users, sales of which are said to quadruple in the next four years. MS has to get in on the 'mobile' act it's the future.

[pctech]

Sorry, I don't see people knocking out long documents on a tablet.

[Rik]

Do you see tablets completely replacing 'conventional' machines, Steve?

[Gary]

It's the customers choice of hardware that's forcing the change imo,desktops sales are in decline and in the next few years we are going to see a large increase in the number of tablet users, sales of which are said to quadruple in the next four years. MS has to get in on the 'mobile' act it's the future.

Indeed but I think people will still want a desktop for  awhile yet, gamers will for many years to come, cards like the ATI HD 6990 are like tanks on their own. For the rest laptops are being replaced by tablets slowly as well as basic machines for those who watch youtube email and browse and not much more. I must admit a tablet would suit Justina well, thing is I would not get an iPad, HTML5 may be the way forward but flash is still needed for now.

[Gary]

Sorry, I don't see people knocking out long documents on a tablet.

Touch screen keyboard are very good and on a ten inch tablet it would not really be an issue, you get used to things quickly, I can type faster on my iPhone than I ever could on a conventional keypad now. If you really wanted that a plug in/bluetooth keyboard it would be no hardship for long hours if thats what suits you. The change is happening now, more tablets are shifting I believe than laptops. Its the slow evolution of tech simple slim powerful devices. Just look at the dual core smartphones with 4"screens they are so powerful compared with what was here two years ago and the development cycle is becoming pretty rapid.

[Steve]

As Mitch pointed out in the previous post there will always be a role for a proper keyboard and decent sized screen to work on. But I can't see why for the rest of "internet use" we need a desktop. I rarely ever use a desktop except at work. I've freed myself from the study. A decent tablet provides you with instantaneous access to mail,internet,social media,music,video and documents.

[Rik]

What work wouldn't you do on a tablet, Steve?

[Gary]

As Mitch pointed out in the previous post there will always be a role for a proper keyboard and decent sized screen to work on. But I can't see why for the rest of "internet use" we need a desktop. I rarely ever use a desktop except at work. I've freed myself from the study. A decent tablet provides you with instantaneous access to mail,internet,social media,music,video and documents.

I have to agree for what I am doing now I could quite happily be sitting in the lounge using a decent tablet and not needing the power of a desktop, also if I go out I have my social contacts/networks/email and browser and all the information at hand via 3G or wifi. The tablet version of Apples pages is pretty good, I can see windows going the same way with Word etc.

[Steve]

We talked earlier about the move away from the traditional desktop,news today of a major hardware manufacturer which is trying to shift into Internet and cloud based services. I'm surprised it's ditching WebOS I guess it's failed to compete with IOS and Android.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-18/hp-said-to-be-near-10-billion-autonomy-takeover-spinoff-of-pc-business.html

[Glenn]

HP's purchase of EDS 3 years ago fits with "Their focus is on being more of a software and services company and not dependent on the hardware businesses" EDS were one of the largest Service companies worldwide at the time.

[Technical Ben]

I have to agree for what I am doing now I could quite happily be sitting in the lounge using a decent tablet and not needing the power of a desktop, also if I go out I have my social contacts/networks/email and browser and all the information at hand via 3G or wifi. The tablet version of Apples pages is pretty good, I can see windows going the same way with Word etc.

True. But then that's an extra £400 on top of my £400 "stuck in the corner pc". Hey I'd have a device of every size if money was not an issue.

[Steve]

A few more details here from the BBC


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14908568


ARM compatible Windows and I think the comments regarding the expected growth of tablets really shows where the future of computing lies with Desktops strictly for gaming and professional use and I'm personally not sure whether the laptop has a future.

[.Griff.]

Currently downloading the Windows 8 Developers release - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

[pctech]

Do let us know how you get on Griff and whether you can clean install (thus facilitating a dual boot) or whether its an upgrade.

If I can dual boot it I may give it a go.

[.Griff.]

Just burned the iso to disc and about to try it on my laptop now.

I'll report back.

[Simon]

If you can... 

[Rik]

Be careful, Griff, a hot disc in the lap can cause nasty singeing.

[.Griff.]

Slight mistake on my behalf.. I downloaded the x64 version (I was on automatic pilot) and forgot my laptop was 32bit.

Any way I've downloaded the x86 iso and it's now installing. There's no option at all to perform a clean install but that's not really an issue for me as there's nothing on the laptop anyway.

[Steve]

Sadly there's no way back either,I wonder if it installs to VM

ie http://www.sysprobs.com/guide-install-windows-8-virtualbox

[.Griff.]

I appreciate it's early days but it's not nice at all.

It's an operating system with an identity crisis not knowing whether it's designed for use on tablets or traditional PC's so what MS have done is basically added a touchscreen "frontend" onto Windows 7 and called it Windows 8.

As an example if you click the "Start" button it takes you to a tablet screen with various "apps" and oversized tiles. If you click on the control panel tile for example then it completely abandons all pretence to be tablet friendly and goes back to tradiotnal Windows menu's and icons. If you want to take a simple screenshot and paste it into MS Paint then it's a convoluted trip from traditional windows screens to chucky "press finger here" tiles back to traditional windows menus and so on.

It all smacks of MS wanting a piece of the tablet market and thinking how they can bodge their way there.

[Rik]

Ouch.

[.Griff.]

I managed to install the graphics drivers for my laptop and restarted it.

When Windows finishes loading it present you with a nice photograph of some mountains with the date/time and a wireless network icon. Cue 5 minutes of me clicking the screen, right clicking, clicking on the time, clicking on the wireless icon all to no avail. Then it dawned on me! You have to "swipe" the screen from top to bottom to access the login page. So obvious!! How did I not realise sooner!! 

So far I've tried a few of the apps. "Zero Gravity" is a basic game where you use "finger gestures" and "swipes" to move a character around the screen. Not sure how you're meant to do that on anything but a tablet but nevermind.

Next I tried "Piano" which doesn't need much explaining. Suffice to say I can press my laptop screen as hard as I like but the bloody piano won't make a sound!

Then there's "Socialite" and "Tweet@rama" which basically equates to Facebook and Twitter only a lot more basic, lacking features and slow. Quite why you'd want to use either when you can login to the fully featured websites in half the time is beyond me,

And finally my main gripe so far. The escape key "ESC" doesn't seem to perform any function at all in Windows 8. If you start an app for example there's absolutely no way out of it. You could use the Windows key to get back to the "desktop" but that leaves the app running in the backgroup and all the music and sounds still playing through the speakers so the only way out I can find is "ctrl-alt-del" and task manager.

[pctech]

Sounds nasty and is likely to be a nightmare to support remotely.

Think I'll take a couple of weeks off when its released and let my colleagues take the strain 

[Simon]

It sounds enough to drive people to an alternative.

[Gary]

It sounds enough to drive people to an alternative.

Fondle slabs do seem the way forward for every day computing, and since a few books have now been written on touch screen keypads I think people will get used to them very quickly, although the MS tablet weighing in at two pounds will may be a tad heavy, but great for stopping muggers dead in their tracks, although I expect the finished machine to be less cumbersome.

Having an OS that works on both Desktop and Tablet is a risky venture MS seem to be dipping their toes in to see the temperature.

[Technical Ben]

Touch is not for desktop use. Nuff said.

[pctech]

Personally I'd prefer a slab of Cadbury  (there that's the food reference sorted)

[.Griff.]

Slowly getting to grips with it all now.

[Rik]

Can you make it look like XP, Griff?

[Technical Ben]

Can you make it look like this?



(An old dos navigation program. I forget the original name, but I went into photoshop and put "XP" over the top and some windows folders instead of the old dos ones. )
Oh, and the date was displayed as "103" as I opened the program in dos box, on an XP machine, and it's such an old program it was not millennium bug proof.

[Rik]

 

[Technical Ben]

It was one of 2 we used in DOS. One had a blue background with white text, and basically looked like your old file navigation in windows 3.1/95. Just with the limited UI that programming in Dos gave but it worked for copying files and stuff like that. Looked like this but I think ours had more options. http://www.hisys.sk/bbp/bbp-vc.gif

The other was the one I posted, and we used it to make shortcuts to launch games. Really useful and easy.

[Rik]

Those were the days, eh?

[Lance]

It [Windows 8] does all seem a bit 'in your face' with all the big text and panels. If I ever get time, I might try and install it in a VM.

[Inkblot]

I've read somewhere that it will ship with 2 UI's - 1 is 'Mtero' which is the big tiles, optimised for touchscreen that is the one usually shown but the other is a standard desktop, similar to the Win7 desktop. I know which I prefer!

Edit: Not the quote I read but one that says similar: http://blogs.computerworld.com/18946/will_windows_8_be_the_windows_desktops_last_hurrah

[.Griff.]

I've read somewhere that it will ship with 2 UI's - 1 is 'Mtero' which is the big tiles, optimised for touchscreen that is the one usually shown but the other is a standard desktop, similar to the Win7 desktop. I know which I prefer!

That's correct to an extent.

Like I said earlier it's basically Windows 7 with a touchscreen front-end bolted on to it. (The Metro part)

After using it for a few days I can't see any reason, even slight, why Windows 7 users would upgrade to it.

[pctech]

Do you have to be constantly online to use it btw?

Have you tried to pull the plug to see what happens?

[.Griff.]

Do you have to be constantly online to use it btw?

Have you tried to pull the plug to see what happens?

It's installed on my laptop and I've not noticed any issues with it when I've turned off wireless. Obviously certain functions require net access but apart from that nothing drastic happens if you're not online.

[pctech]

Thats good then as whenever I order my new system the first tthing I'll do is scrub the factory installed image and reinstall Windows, I usually disconnect the Ethernet while I do this, install AV and patch it.

[Technical Ben]

Hmmm. At the rate of change, I might stick to Win 9 for upgrading. Unless it becomes a complete ad revenue funded mess.

[D-Dan]

More out of academic interest than anything I downloaded and installed the Windows 8 developer preview in a VM last night. Installation went smoothly enough, and only took 10 - 15 minutes, and when it had finished, Ughhh. I hated it.

It looks like a child's toy and there is nothing intuitive about it in my opinion. The much heralded tiled interface is ugly and confusing, and the desktop mode is nothing more than a kludge that doesn't provide a proper desktop.

Oh, and I, too, haven't figured out how to quit a running program, yet. I can say with some certainty that I won't be getting it. I'll stick with Debian, and Win 7 when Windows is an absolute must (I think I had to use Windows once 3 weeks ago for, ermm, um - Oh yes! had to update it.)

[pctech]

Alt + F4 should work.

[D-Dan]

I should have thought of that, though again, not a particularly intuitive way of doing things (and I always take the view that Alt-F4 is there for misbehaving programmes anyway).

[pctech]

Them pesky mouse users 

[D-Dan]

I'd hazard a guess that it will be even more cumbersome on a touch screen only system

[.Griff.]

I'd hazard a guess that it will be even more cumbersome on a touch screen only system

Windows 8 is clearly designed with touch screen devices in mind and it's for that exact reason it's hard to quit applications on a desktop PC. I.E We don't have a "home" button like touch devices do.

[Steve]

I think the last comment's very important certainly with IOS (a touch screen OS) and to a lesser extent Mac OS X  you don't bother to close anything you just move onto something else.

[Technical Ben]

Arrggh. Worse idea ever.

Basically, Bill is not there. I see Windows 8 might be a "design by committee". The local town here has a shopping hall constructed by "committee" cost over 6 mil, it's in debt to the tune of £400k and has no customers. Wonder how well MS will do.