In the "release preview," there are a few positive signs. First, it isn't nearly as bug-ridden as the developer preview I had downloaded sometime late last year (or earlier this year; it's easy to forget painful memories). Second, it actually boots. Third, it, uh. Well, I'll get back to you on that. I've honestly reached the limit of my positive thoughts for Windows 8. To think, this is only the second paragraph of my post.
In this thread, I'm going to take you on a quick tour from installation to--err--usage (?) of the operating system as well as exploring some of the significant deviations from the paradigms Microsoft has spent some 20+ years working to establish on the desktop.
And they threw all of that away.
Yes, that's right. The start button, which we've had since Windows 95, has been thrown out the window. The start menu itself has been overhauled as a full-screen something-or-other that's exceedingly difficult to navigate with the mouse. This new start menu incantation is the user interface lovingly (or hatefully) called "Metro." As with most Metro areas, it seems to be afflicted by organic growth, confusing corridors, and beautiful façades--as long as you don't stray from the city square. The back alleyways are pretty disgusting. I can't really say they're rodent-infested, because it turns out that you may as well throw away your mouse.
You see, if you're not familiar with Windows 8, it's Microsoft's idea of merging tablet and desktop paradigms into a single OS. On the one hand, I can understand why they elected to go this route--and commend them (to an extent)--because it merges two code-bases into one, single, easily maintained repository. On the other, I'm not sure whether it's a gamble that's going to pay off. Using Metro with a mouse is an exercise in frustration, and if you do anything more than just check e-mail or browse the web with a single window (more on this later), you're going to be pretty annoyed whenever you find you need to get Real Work done. Essentially, Windows 8 feels like Windows 7 with a clumsy kiosk mode bolted on the front.
So, let's start, shall we? There's a few images, so I'm linking them to Imgur. I'm too lazy to put up thumbnails at the moment, so you're going to have to click each one if you're interested. Sorry. I might fix this tomorrow evening, if I have some time, but don't bet your panties on it.
Installation
Okay, so I was wrong. I can think of a third, mostly positive thing to say about Windows 8: Its installation process is exceptionally simple. In fact, it's so simple, you don't really need to do anything. The initial install screen (not pictured) is just like Windows 7's. After that, it gets a bit more bizarre.
The first exhibit is our "Personalize" screen, since apparently picking and choosing from 25 colors is considered "personalization" these days (this shot is the only one that shows it running in Virtualbox just to prove I wasn't stupid enough to install it on real hardware):
http://i.imgur.com/kYQKN.png
Also, you get to name your PC just like in previous version of Windows. Isn't that great? Not only can you choose from 25 colors that were apparently selected by a colorblind muskrat, but they also retained the ability to name your computer! Wow, that's customization right there, folks.
Once you've spent sufficient time staring at a palette plucked from King Tut's moldy armpits, you're presented with a series of screens that let you configure certain system features and behaviors. I won't post all of them (there's only two or three), but it's quite telling upon further inspection where Microsoft is going with Windows 8:
http://i.imgur.com/22d2Q.png
That's right: Those little slider thingies are checkboxes. Rather, they're what should be checkboxes. They're not, though, and it looks like someone decided it was a good idea to copy iOS (I have an iPod; no, I don't like the sliders). Yet, if you click them, they'll toggle on and off just like a checkbox.
Honestly, if its modus operandi is that of a checkbox, make it a damn checkbox. It really bothers me when web developers go out of their way to reskin UI controls (like checkboxes) into something as unintuitive as a slider. Did we really spend 30+ years on user interfaces only to throw away every bit of standardization we were working toward just to have a flashy new UI? Seriously, Microsoft: Apple already has the hipster consumer market. You're not going to win them over.
Anyway, I'll save you the boredom of the installation immediately following settings, but the executive summary is basically thus: You set up a Windows Live! account (if you don't already have one) or you can skip the Live! setup and hope it works. I decided to go the Live! route out of curiosity, but I'm beginning to think it's because I enjoy tormenting myself. Regardless, whatever you choose, you'll eventually have the option of logging in, and that takes us to...
All Aboard the Metro... Well, Sort Of
If you haven't yet seen it, here's what Metro looks like:
http://i.imgur.com/NCPXB.png
Also, there's no more start menu. This is it. This is Metro. This is Start. This is where you go to launch your favorite applications.
Optionally, this is also where dreams go to die. If I were a more empathetic individual, I would've probably found some time at this very moment to go cry in the corner. But I'm not, so instead I fumed. I fumed beautiful HTML5-CSS3-web-two-point-oh-multi-touch-mobile-tablet-3G-4G-HG (sorry, HG) tears.
Dazed and confused, the first thing I did was open MSIE. What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment.
http://i.imgur.com/gZMkk.png
It's like someone opened up a can of anti-trust and spilled it all over my screen. Yes, that's right: It defaults to Bing. More importantly there's absolutely no way to change the default search engine from within the Metro version of MSIE.
At this point, I should probably clarify something. There are two basic modes of operating applications under Windows 8. The first, and default mode, is to run them as a "Metro" app. Metro apps run full-screen, and there's no way to switch between them easily. You can't even have two Metro apps running side-by-side. The second mode, "legacy mode," is where you run the "Desktop" application, and gain access to the standard behavior of Windows. Yes, you heard that right: The "Desktop" application. The Windows desktop that you all know and love has been relegated to the status of a mere application under the glory that is Windows 8. You can still use your applications the way you're used to, but only if you run the Desktop app first!
Also, did I mention that you can't switch between Metro apps easily? You can't use alt+tab (unless you started the Desktop application first, but then you get a choice between Desktop and a full screen Metro app), there's no taskbar (again, without Desktop running), and the only thing you can do is this:
http://i.imgur.com/h3F0H.png
Gray screen? The heck?
Let me clarify since this is a PNG, and you can't actually see what I did. It's not intuitive: You have to click the top of the screen where the mouse cursor changes to a hand, and swipe the application down to the bottom in order to minimize it. Or close it. Or Metroify it. Or whatever this action is supposed to do. I'm sure it makes sense on a tablet with a touch screen or on a Windows phone, but if you're using a desktop PC and a mouse, you're going to quickly become frustrated. I don't care what the pundits say: This isn't a good paradigm shift for the desktop.
I know some of you folks pretty well. You like your applications. You like running a bunch of crap all at once. This change is going to make you weep. Basically, in the 30 years since MSDOS was released, we're going back to the days where computers ran one application at a time. I realize that's a bit of an exaggeration, but when you consider that you have to down-swipe Metro apps to minify them and you can't have multiple Metro apps running on the screen at once (or switch between them with alt+tab), is it really an exaggeration?
And yes, I know you can just stick with the Desktop app and do everything from there. Here's one problem with that logic: If you unpin an app from the taskbar and then proceed to launch it using the only means you know how (Metro), it--wait for it--runs as a Metro app! In other words, the only way to run applications that operate both as traditional and Metro apps is to pin them to the taskbar. Sure, the pundits may tell you "Well, then, pin it to the taskbar!" But there's a problem: What if you're like me and you only use MSIE to verify that a page is working in that browser? You don't use it for anything else, so "pinning" it to the taskbar is overkill (and a waste of precious screen real estate). Instead, you either find a 3rd party start menu app, pin it to your taskbar, or live with the fact that Metro apps eat up your entire screen.
Windows 8, therefore, is developer unfriendly. Since gamers and power users often have similar needs to developers (lots of windows when doing research), I'd even wager that Windows 8 is gamer and power user unfriendly.
The Desktop App
So, as I mentioned before, the Windows desktop has been demoted to an app that runs under Metro. (Mostly, anyway, it appears that it still runs most of the same services like explorer.exe and friends.) It even looks like Windows 7:
http://i.imgur.com/6xj2j.png
Except there's two things missing. You'll notice there's no longer any start button, nor is the "show desktop" bubble available in the lower-right corner. It doesn't mean they're not there, either. In fact, the only way you can get your start menu back is to hover the mouse over the lower-left corner. Err, excuse me: The Metro screen:
http://i.imgur.com/o06gB.png
At this point, I can only assume that the desktop picture is chosen randomly from a series of stock photos. I think Windows made a good choice. It picked a field of tulips, because it knew that there was about to be a flood of profanity slipping out from my two lips.
I'm Losing Control
Without a start menu, how do you change critical system settings? There's nothing in the Metro screen (start screen, whatever it's called) to indicate what you have to do. Any ideas?
I'll let you ponder on that for a moment.
Here's the trick that I finally discovered after fooling around for about 5 minutes. It's not intuitive either. Hover your mouse over the lower right corner of the screen (where the show desktop bubble used to be), and you get this:
http://i.imgur.com/gdNzr.png
Then, if you don't screw up completely with your mouse movement, you get this:
http://i.imgur.com/C6UBv.png
And only then do you get the control panel:
http://i.imgur.com/ZTAaA.png
I've Had Enough; Turn this Damn Thing Off
This section has been edited. Apparently, I'm not particularly observant, so if you examine the previous screenshot, you'll notice the correct answer. However, I've updated my rant accordingly.
Would it surprise you if I told you that turning off a Windows 8 machine is about as intuitive as a horse that would only turn left if you gave it a full-blown rectal exam? Here's what you have to do, and be warned: You really ought to be wearing some thick gloves. A little lube wouldn't hurt, either.
Powering off the machine requires exactly the same procedure to get to the control panel (makes sense, right?), except minus the control panel. If you lower-right-mouse-hover (that is, hover the mouse over the lower right corner of the screen), then click on settings, and then click on power, you can power the machine down. This essentially overrides all the UI work Microsoft put into the start menu from Vista onwards and requires one extra click and one extra action. In contrast with the default settings in Vista and Windows 7, both of which required simply clicking "start" and then "shutdown" (or the power button in Vista), Windows 8 requires you to hover over a part of the screen (the first action), click on settings (first click, second action), click on power (second click, third action), and then click on shutdown (third click, fourth action).
The biggest problem for me is that this wasn't obvious. Maybe I'm too used to Doing It The Old Way™, or maybe my brain just doesn't work in the new Metro way, but I was confounded. I suppose you could argue that the computer's power on state is a "setting," but I can't shake the notion that turning a machine off through "settings" (where you'd ordinarily find software settings) makes any more sense than clicking "start."
To be honest, turning off the machine via "settings" took me the longest part to figure out, even though the icon was fairly obvious. In fact, I just discovered it nearly 18 hours after writing this post.
When I first tried to turn the Windows 8 install off, my initial response was thus: Go to the start screen, and click on your username, signing off in the process:
http://i.imgur.com/0W5gc.png
Then sit at the login screen for a few puzzled moments:
http://i.imgur.com/wC0kL.png
At the time, this was my first encounter with this mysterious login screen. There was no indication of what you're supposed to do here. Do I type? Nope, doesn't work. Do I click something? Oh, hey, would you look at that--it brings up the login box.
And wouldn't you know, you can power the machine down from there:
http://i.imgur.com/xrIVS.png
The problem this illustrates (for me) is that Windows 8 begs the user to discard all previous conceptions of how to operate a Windows box. Nothing works exactly as you expect, and perhaps the most sinister aspect of it all is that the Desktop app lulls you into a fall sense of familiarity. The problem is that this doesn't work.
I'm not sure exactly what Microsoft was thinking when they reworked the UI to this extent, but for the last 17 years, Redmond has had us convinced that you turn off a computer by clicking "start." I have half a mind to believe that they're following Apple's model in the OS 9 to OS X transition, but there's one small problem. In spite of the major UI overhaul, Apple was smart enough to retain many of the little nuances that made Mac OS stand out. There's still the contextual menus that appear depending on the app that's focused, you still drag a disk to the trashcan to eject it (or so I've heard), and OS X came with the tremendous advantage that it has a real shell. It's one thing to shed archaic UI artifacts in favor of more modern paradigms, but it's another thing entirely to adopt change for the sake of change. I'm afraid Windows 8 is an expression of the latter.
Some Parting Thoughts
First thing's first: If your Live! account uses a 20 character password--which works fine with Live!--Windows 8 won't let you login. It appears that the limit is around 10-14 characters, presumably because of some inane NTLM limitations that has held over into the Windows Account integration. So, if you like long passphrases, you're pretty much screwed.
This leaves us with the following summary:
- Metro apps are difficult to switch between; you must first go back to the Metro screen by swiping down from the top of the screen to the bottom and launch another app.
- You cannot run more than one Metro app side-by-side with another Metro app.
- Your Windows desktop runs as an app under Metro. Also, you can down-swipe the Desktop app to "close" it. It doesn't close your running applications, though.
- Many of the personalization tricks that worked under Windows 7 no longer work under Windows 8. Even the window colors that you might've grown fond of from the personalization selection (right-clicking the Windows desktop and going to "Personalize") are mostly gone.
- If you want to get your start menu back, you can only do so (currently) by downloading 3rd party programs. Worse, although these applications are free, one of them requires you to provide your e-mail address and the other (ViStart) installs two pieces of adware that attempt to install toolbars and addons into your browsers. It'd be the epitome of irony if a huge slew of Windows 8 installs were compromised by botnet clients or keyloggers simply because Joe Average User wanted his start menu back and installed an app that claimed it would do just exactly that.
There are some positive things:
- Aero works even under software acceleration. This means that even modest hardware can show some of the fancier UI effects like transparency. It also works under Virtualbox (as you probably noticed).
- You can log in using a Windows Account even if your network connection is down (yes, I tried it). I'm guessing this is a pro.
- You can easily spot which tech pundits have Steve Ballmer's ballsack pressed against their chin.
I'm sure Windows 8 will be fantastic on phones and tablets. Indeed, having a full-fledged Windows box sitting on your tablet might open up a whole new world of software. On the other hand, not all tablets will be x86-based, so you won't be able to get your favorite x86 apps working unless the developer recompiles them for ARM. I wonder if targeting the same OS for two entirely different platforms is really all that smart? Think about it: The average Windows user isn't exactly a computing genius, and if Microsoft's marketing department does its job, consumers will be convinced that the shiny new tablet they bought for Christmas is running Windows--no different from the Windows running on their PC. With this in mind, do you think Joe Average User is going to be happy when he finds out that all those "games for Windows" games he bought won't work because they were compiled for a different CPU architecture?
I've rambled on enough. It's time to hear what you guys think. There's probably a few things here and there that I forgot about, but it's unlikely to be important--you're likely to come to the same conclusions I have (since you're all gamers), so anything I omitted is likely obvious and something you're already thinking of! I'll try to update this post as I discover where I'm wrong or new things about Windows 8 that might not be so bad. So far, though, I'm not holding out much hope.
Also, to Highgrade: I feel bad for you. Supporting Windows 8 is going to be the bane of your existence.
If you're interested in trying out Windows 8 for yourself to determine whether or not my post is fair or otherwise, you can grab an ISO here, from Microsoft's consumer preview site. Be sure to save the product key, too. Specifically, download the x64 version if you have a 64-bit capable CPU and try running it in Virtualbox (may require enabling VTx or AMD-V--virtualization extensions--in your BIOS). If you really want to try this out, just post and ask if you run into anything or want some pointers to get started. I don't mind. Honest.
