Windows 8

Pages

Microsoft have finally unveiled part of what they're planning for the next version of Windows

It looks interesting if I was using a tablet, but I can't help thinking that to make proper use of it will need apps specifically made for that interface and interoperability with other desktop/tablet apps, and I'm not sure quite how many Win8 apps there will be. Given the main reason I am on windows is the legacy of many apps (and games) made for the WIMP UI, and that if I was moving to using a tablet I'd make a clean break for something made for and fully committed to the task. However, as a bridge between two worlds, it seems quite nice.

I think it looks pretty goddamn great, but as I said over on MeFi, Microsoft has a long, long history of shooting themselves in the foot. I have early gadget lust, but I'm putting it mostly on hold until it ships.

It's very different from what we're used to, but it's well past time to start really thinking about new ways to approach computing. We are, like it or not, moving away from the PC-centric world, and moving to more universal interfaces that work everywhere may end up being the best approach.

It also may not, but the simple fact that Windows 8 is so different is not a bad thing. It's threatening to those of us who have so much invested in the old way of doing things, but the new way may be better. We'll need to wait and see.

But I really, really think we're gonna end up with a product that's crippled by all the factionalism in Microsoft.

I have to admit that it looks pretty slick. It's not clear at this point but it looks like while OEMs will not be allowed to disable this UI at the factory, it is not a 100% replacement for the standard Windows UI and that you'll still be able to disable it if you want.

I personally think the idea is cool for a lot of more novice residential users and suddenly could make Windows 8 a good solution for tablets. However, as a power user and someone who works in a corporate environment that runs tons of specialised engineering software, I don't want this myself. I like customisability and I want that with performance, not a simplified, bubbly UI that makes everything prettier but slower to accomplish. If I want a tablet I'll buy one, I don't want to turn my laptop and especially my desktop into one. Corporate users (which are still Microsoft's bread and butter) are not going to want this either, aside from being maybe a fancy launch point. Excel and PowerPoint are not viable "Start Screen" applications and certain things don't work well as apps (geez I hate that term). If they do allow us to turn it off though, that's cool.

My biggest concern with this is how heavily it relies on JavaScript. That technology is currently the biggest security scourge in existence and is the launching pad for most spyware. Basing your entire base UI on it is just asking for trouble, unless it's heavily sandboxed and forbidden from installing code or interacting with other parts of the OS. Microsoft has learned some security lessons recently but I'm not sure if it's gone that far.

I think making (optional) enhancements to the UI is a good thing but I am concerned that the industry as a whole is overreacting to tablets and thinking that everyone wants everything to be like them. Tablets are cool for specific things and full PCs are cool for different reasons. Trying to make them all work exactly the same isn't smart and they don't all have to look and act exactly the same way to be able to work together. Standard Windows doesn't work well on a tablet so why all of a sudden does a tablet OS work well on PC?

Local Javascript is no more dangerous than local machine code. If you're downloading and installing a program, it doesn't matter what it's written in. The fact that they're using Javascript on the desktop is irrelevant in terms of security.

The security problems with Javascript come from downloading and running code from remote computers without realizing you're doing so, from blurring the distinction between (safe) data and (unsafe) code. And that problem is even infecting the free software world, which really should know better.

Yeah but how many Start Screen applications are going to be constantly pulling data from online sources which could include updated code that it will run? There's a reason the other tablets don't base their applications around JavaScript.

Except the HP Touchpad, you mean.

Malor wrote:

But I really, really think we're gonna end up with a product that's crippled by all the factionalism in Microsoft.

That's always in the back of my mind when I read anything to do with MS now. When they panned over to excel it was nice to see the old UI still there, but I couldn't help wanting to see what they could do with a variant for tablet mode. I'm sure the office department did the bare minimum to get it working acceptably, which seems a common theme over many parts of MS.

It just seems like MS will never quite make an equivalent jump like Mac OS9 - OSX. It would be interesting to see them drop 32 bit support from desktop versions of windows, although I understand Atom is 32 bit which scuppers that thought unless they were to make more editions of windows when they maybe should be consolidating to less.

I really think it's too early for another Windows. Windows 7 is fantastic so why not keep it going and polish it? I can't see myself spending more money to upgrade to another OS when the one I have works great.

I have a feeling I may be waiting for the second iteration of this.

I really like the Metro UI idea. Like others, I'm concerned that they're trying to use a single OS too many places, with compromises in them all due to trying to do everything. Windows Mobile never got rid of the deep Windows CE settings stuff, no matter how much they tried to pretty up the shell.

Odd choice on the Javascript. You'd have expected Silverlight to be more involved, so that developers might get some kind of portability with Win Phone, or at least skill leveraging from developing on both platforms. But maybe I just don't understand this stuff well enough.

I wonder how the Metro stuff they demoed will work across multiple monitors? Should be interesting.

My biggest concern personally is what they're going to do with Windows Media Center. Will it be updated, or will it become the next Minesweeper, left to die slowly. I suspect MS is going to push IPTV on Xbox, Windows, and Win Phone, so might let their great DVR software wither away as a failed product. Admittedly not that many people use it, but personally I love it. It just needs continued support for new tech and content tie ins, or it will become irrelevant very quickly. Even cable DVRs are catching up to a lot of it's features such as multi-room viewing (7-8 years later).

TempestBlayze wrote:

I really think it's too early for another Windows. Windows 7 is fantastic so why not keep it going and polish it? I can't see myself spending more money to upgrade to another OS when the one I have works great.

In terms of the time periods between windows releases historically, I'd say W8 is about right. As with any release though, it's not as though It'll stop working, and W7 will be supported for a long time yet. Regarding gaming, for better or worse, I haven't heard anything to suggest Vista/W7 will be out of date with something exclusive to W8, as DirectX10+ was exclusive to Vista and later (which probably hampered adoption of DX10).

garion333 wrote:

I have a feeling I may be waiting for the second iteration of this.

That's been my thought with a lot of MS stuff, it will take some time for applications (and applications are the lifeblood of an OS) to adopt and take advantage of whatever new features W8 provides. Who knows, by that time perhaps there will be a comfortable middleground between the touch UI and the old desktop that feels comfortable to all.

Javascript is getting very fast, and it's in wide deployment, so allowing Javascript to run directly on the desktop means it'll be really easy to move web applications to the desktop. Most likely, the thinking is to try to preserve the Windows monopoly, rather than actually benefit users, but there may inadvertently be actual user benefit involved.

If they tried to force Silverlight down everyone's throat, it would almost certainly fail.

Malor wrote:

Javascript is getting very fast, and it's in wide deployment, so allowing Javascript to run directly on the desktop means it'll be really easy to move web applications to the desktop. Most likely, the thinking is to try to preserve the Windows monopoly, rather than actually benefit users, but there may inadvertently be actual user benefit involved.

If they tried to force Silverlight down everyone's throat, it would almost certainly fail.

The other odd thing about using anything Java is the fight with Sun from years ago over MS's version of Java that they were shipping. I'm convinced that's why MS still won't support Blu-Ray on either Xbox or Windows. It was the reason MS went with HD-DVD in the first place: no java menus.

Maybe time does heal all wounds.

I'm interested in the fact that they are saying this will have lower system requirements than Win 7, and Win 7 will run on some pretty slow/old stuff. I'm sure drivers will be an issue on old hardware, but that's still a nice direction for MS to be going. I assume this is a partially a result of them having to tighten stuff up for tablets/ARM devices.

I get the move.. they need to consolidate their UI to fit multiple screens/devices. My concern is how deep the "change" goes.. or are we just looking at a half assed overlay that once you get two steps deep your into Windows 7 UI that will suck for anything but a Mouse/Keyboard and a typical PC.

TheGameguru wrote:

I get the move.. they need to consolidate their UI to fit multiple screens/devices. My concern is how deep the "change" goes.. or are we just looking at a half assed overlay that once you get two steps deep your into Windows 7 UI that will suck for anything but a Mouse/Keyboard and a typical PC.

The way I see it is as two UIs running simultaneously, that you can switch between and mix and match for some applications. Almost as though you had the normal windows UI and the xbox dashboard running on one computer and could switch when you picked up a joypad, or perhaps Media Centre.

What I'm really interested in is how they advise doing apps for W8, as it's two interfaces now.

The Metro UI looks really slick. This could be a great Trojan horse for Windows Marketplace. Right now they are struggling in the mobile market but as people around the world upgrade to Windows 8 the amount of users able to run Windows Phone apps will grow which will in turn increase revenue, developer interest and make their mobile platform more attractive (I'm assuming all Windows Phone apps run in Windows 8).

It also looks like this UI could easily be used on their next Xbox/Home console. With Kinect coming to the PC I wouldn't be surprised if they patch it in or have out of the box Kinect support with the Metro UI. Apple is definitely going this route so it's interesting to see Microsoft jump the gun Xbox 360 style. It's probably why it feels like it's way too early for a new Windows.

All this, WWDC and E3. Tech news is going to make my head explode!

MannishBoy wrote:
Malor wrote:

Javascript is getting very fast, and it's in wide deployment, so allowing Javascript to run directly on the desktop means it'll be really easy to move web applications to the desktop. Most likely, the thinking is to try to preserve the Windows monopoly, rather than actually benefit users, but there may inadvertently be actual user benefit involved.

If they tried to force Silverlight down everyone's throat, it would almost certainly fail.

The other odd thing about using anything Java is the fight with Sun from years ago over MS's version of Java that they were shipping. I'm convinced that's why MS still won't support Blu-Ray on either Xbox or Windows. It was the reason MS went with HD-DVD in the first place: no java menus.

Maybe time does heal all wounds.

I'm interested in the fact that they are saying this will have lower system requirements than Win 7, and Win 7 will run on some pretty slow/old stuff. I'm sure drivers will be an issue on old hardware, but that's still a nice direction for MS to be going. I assume this is a partially a result of them having to tighten stuff up for tablets/ARM devices.

Java and Javascript are two very different things.

breander wrote:

Java and Javascript are two very different things.

Understood, but there's still some Sun legacy in Javascript, right? I know it was mocha before javascript, but I still have always assumed the bad blood might carry over a bit.

MannishBoy wrote:
breander wrote:

Java and Javascript are two very different things.

Understood, but there's still some Sun legacy in Javascript, right? I know it was mocha before javascript, but I still have always assumed the bad blood might carry over a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript#JavaScript_and_Java

Other than using some similar conventions they have no relation to each other. So there would be no bad blood to carry over.

That video is pretty shocking.

Keep in mind that this is the first in a series, I would bet that each video will address a different functionality. This first one was to show how ridiculously different the UI is. The next might be the assuage fears of corporate users.

Interesting. I can honestly say that I haven't been this desperate to get my hands on a release candidate since they started talking about Vista (and look how well that turned out).

If you need me, I'll be praying for a legacy interface so I can actually roll this out at work =)

oilypenguin wrote:

If you need me, I'll be praying for a legacy interface so I can actually roll this out at work =)

Our Windows XP images at work still default to the NT interface, which was probably on there because most of our PCs prior to XP were Win 95. So I know how that goes.

oilypenguin wrote:

since they started talking about Vista (and look how well that turned out).

Really Vista was a poorly managed oddity when you compare it to most other versions of windows. They pretty much had to restart development which is why it took 5 years rather than the usual 2 or 3.

If anything, I'd say W8 is closer to the concept video for Vista with apps living in the sidebar, being more than just mostly passive picture frames and widgets, except in W8 the apps are not in a 300-400px wide bar on the right, but flexible into many forms. It's a definite change if the metro UI takes off.

Having really fallen in love with the interface on Windows Phone 7, this looks pretty great to me. I recognize a lot of the ideas and conventions at play in WP7. My main concern is, as others have said, the Metro UI being a thin layer that quickly gives way to the standard Windows UI we know today that won't be usable with anything but a standard mouse and keyboard.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Having really fallen in love with the interface on Windows Phone 7, this looks pretty great to me. I recognize a lot of the ideas and conventions at play in WP7. My main concern is, as others have said, the Metro UI being a thin layer that quickly gives way to the standard Windows UI we know today that won't be usable with anything but a standard mouse and keyboard.

I almost think that the real goal of changing interfaces will be realized more in Win 9. This is the transitional step where two things have to exist at the same time, which is going to involve some unfortunate schizophrenia.

It did look like there were at least ways to get at media files in the Metro interface. So maybe if they can almost all of the day in day out functionality that you might do on a touch screen covered by Metro, with some of the more "PC" type settings and legacy application stuff running under more traditional UI, that might work. I don't see people wanting to run a lot of PC looking programs on tablets, anyway. Those needs will require something in a different interface to replace the current ones.

Don't like it.

The "tiles instead of icons, tiles are way better than icons!" thing is nice when you've only got two screens worth of apps. That may be common for the WP7 platform but not so nice elsewhere.

MannishBoy wrote:

I almost think that the real goal of changing interfaces will be realized more in Win 9. This is the transitional step where two things have to exist at the same time, which is going to involve some unfortunate schizophrenia.

This is why I keep coming back to the thought that you need to wait for the first revision, or Win9.

The other thought is that at a rough guess Win9 would be out in 2015, but by that time lots of other things will have moved on. When they're talking of little HTML/JS widgets for icons, that expand out to full screen when clicked, I can't help thinking "just do it in a browser", which leads to thoughts of ChromeOS, which I can run right now (launches VM). I know it's trying to predict the future, which is a mug's game.

I am tentatively excited.

*Legion* wrote:

Don't like it.

The "tiles instead of icons, tiles are way better than icons!" thing is nice when you've only got two screens worth of apps. That may be common for the WP7 platform but not so nice elsewhere.

Its doubtful that you will have to use Tiles for multiple screens of apps.. more than likely your "favorites" will appear there and the rest will be in a list that you can select from the start menu.. or even as shortcuts on the desktop underneath the Metro UI panels.

I think those tiles could be really useful if they're live updates of active application screens. In a multitasking environment, it would be nice to easily see critical info from a bunch of different apps at the same time on the same monitor. Screens are a lot higher resolution than they used to be, and you can fit a TON of data on a typical 24 inch monitor.

People usually don't because of visual confusion, but with the colors and nice rectangular shapes, and minimal edge decoration, I think that might let you sort through an assload of information with minimal effort.

I really like what I see here. I just keep waiting for the inevitable bullet -> foot. Other divisions in Microsoft are going to be threatened, and will do their best to torpedo the success of this project.

Malor wrote:

I think those tiles could be really useful if they're live updates of active application screens. In a multitasking environment, it would be nice to easily see critical info from a bunch of different apps at the same time on the same monitor. Screens are a lot higher resolution than they used to be, and you can fit a TON of data on a typical 24 inch monitor.

People usually don't because of visual confusion, but with the colors and nice rectangular shapes, and minimal edge decoration, I think that might let you sort through an assload of information with minimal effort.

I really like what I see here. I just keep waiting for the inevitable bullet -> foot. Other divisions in Microsoft are going to be threatened, and will do their best to torpedo the success of this project.

I agree and could see the tiles being absolutely wonderful spread across three monitors.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I agree and could see the tiles being absolutely wonderful spread across three monitors.

Also agree. I'm very curious as to how this will work on multiple monitors, but I can see it being a very good thing the more thought I put into it.

I could have my main application on my primary screen, then similar to how I do things now, I could have multiple tiles for media, Tweetdeck, email, etc on the secondary monitor(s). Right now the second monitor is a jumble of windows, but an organized tile layout could be better. Especially for things that I don't have in the front and have to pop to the front when I might just need a glance at the most relevant info from the top and not the whole window.

Pages