The fanboi problem

We all know why Windows 8 is the way it is:

The shove Metro/"Modern" (btw. great name, folks, almost in the same timeless league as "postmodernism") down as many user throats as possible, so that Microsoft can say that WinRT has instantly hundreds of millions of users and so be an attractive target for app developers. And MS needs them ASAP to compete in the smartphone and smudgeblet markets against IOS and Android.

That's the whole point of Metro and you all know it! And frankly, I would have far less problems with it if everyone involved in this game would just admit to this fact.

I can understand Microsoft, but I can't stand the darn fanboys who are get pissed on and pretend it's Cola. They kill the start-menu and the bois say it's because the start screen is easier to use _ON THE DESKTOP_, MS disables the ability to boot directly to the desktop and the fanboys proclaim it's because of "technical reasons" or some bullcrap.

Maddening! If the fanbots would just say "it's because MS needs inflated user numbers, and after that's done, maybe we will get the sane user interface back" I would have far less problems with them.

Fanboys, you know damn well why Win 8 is in this state now, and it has nothing to do with usability.

@wastingtimewithforums: While I don't agree with the tone I do agree with your point. No matter how many times "No Compromise" is said it doesn't make W8 better on a desktop PC. IMO Microsoft is using the "thousand little cuts" strategy to move people over to WinRT/Metro; both developers and users. I'd prefer that they get people to move over because they made life better/easier in WinRT/Metro. Oh well...that ship has sailed...

You know where the door is, right? Have fun!

Not another Windows 8 whine thread.  Could we just pool all of these threads into one big one with the title "Whining about Windows 8"?

We get it, you don't like Windows 8. If devs start filling the store with apps that take advantage of the contracts (search, share, devices, etc.), I can see it getting very popular.

Aside from the UI changes, here's a blog post I wrote listing my favorite non-UI changes in Windows 8. http://spivonious.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/thoughts-on-windows-8/

a moment ago, JeremyJ wrote

Not another Windows 8 whine thread.  Could we just pool all of these threads into one big one with the title "Whining about Windows 8"?

Would be neat if we could vote to merge threads. C9.next feature?

@wastingtimewithforums:

17 minutes ago, wastingtime​withforums wrote

We all know why Windows 8 is the way it is:

The shove Metro/"Modern" (btw. great name, tolks, almost in the same timeless league as "postmodernism") down as many user throats as possible, so that Microsoft can say that WinRT has instantly hundreds of millions of users and so be an attractive target for app developers. And MS needs them ASAP to compete in the mobile market against IOS and Android.

I don't agree

The problem with your post is that it presupposes there is a "mobile market" which includes tablets and is separate from the "PC market". The whole premise of the Windows 8 design is that this is not the case. So if you reject that premise of course it is not going to make sense.

2 hours ago, JeremyJ wrote

Not another Windows 8 whine thread.  Could we just pool all of these threads into one big one with the title "Whining about Windows 8"?

++

I don't have a problem with Win8 whining (free speech and all), but the repeated thread creations about the same exact topic is annoying. At least merge all the topics from this poster..

@wastingtimewithforums: Why would ANYONE want to lock themselves inside a store where not only you lose control of distributing of YOUR applications, you also lose 30% of the sales. This issue where you HAVE to ask PERMISSION FROM MICROSOFT to distribute YOUR application written in WinRT is being ignored by almost ALL news media on purpose.

It's amazing how blind people can be.

The whole startmenu removal is just a decoy. So obvious.

12 hours ago, PeterDouglas wrote

@wastingtimewithforums: Why would ANYONE want to lock themselves inside a store where not only you lose control of distributing of YOUR applications, you also lose 30% of the sales.

I don't know. Ask an iPhone developer.

@wastingtimewithforums: When has anyone ever claimed the reason for booting directly into the Start Screen is for technical reasons? It's done like that because it makes more sense. It may shock you to learn, but the first thing most people do when they start their computer is launch an application, so it makes more sense to start in the application launcher than anywhere else. Now if Windows was booting up and always starting in the mouse properties control panel, your constant whining might make a bit more sense.

As to the idea that it's purely to bump up a usage figure, that doesn't make much sense either. It would have been ridiculously easy to allow Windows XP/7 to download and run Windows Phone 7 apps from the store and instantly outsize the potential app user base of any other tablet/phone developer by several orders of magnitude. If it was simply about the numbers that's exactly what would have been done, rather than spending a huge amount of time and effort building an entirely new platform.

Maybe the problem isn't "fanbois", maybe it's just that you've been so blinkered in your dislike of the Start Screen since the very first moment you saw it that you've never actually stopped to fully consider the possibility that it might actually be an improvement. At this point you need it not to be to validate the endless complaining.

@AndyC: Good points, though I think another reason is to mitigate "winrot" a bit - desktop apps set to run on startup won't run until you click the desktop or a desktop app, so this at least ensures that even if your computer is bogged down with tons of crud (read: the stereotypical "parents/grandparents' PC" where they're afraid to uninstall anything) you can still boot quickly into a more predictable environment that lets you browse the internet and stuff, before the badly behaved background processes take over ...

His point isn't exactly unfounded. If you start at Taskbar, you can launch multiple apps without mouse clicks in a sequential movement. You can't do that with Start Screen or Start Menu when you click the first Win32 app. You click a tile and then move down to Taskbar to continue multiple launch of apps.

It is a bit annoying, but, personally I can live with that.

@contextfree`: That and, if there was such an option, you just know a bunch of badly programmed apps would end up "helpfully" enabling that for users so it can show them ads at startup or whatever.

36 minutes ago, magicalclick wrote

His point isn't exactly unfounded. If you start at Taskbar, you can launch multiple apps without mouse clicks in a sequential movement. You can't do that with Start Screen or Start Menu when you click the first Win32 app. You click a tile and then move down to Taskbar to continue multiple launch of apps.

It is a bit annoying, but, personally I can live with that.

The only applications that you can pin to the taskbar are desktop applications, so if launch any one of those taskbar-pinned applications  from the Start Screen initially, you drop into the desktop immediately. From there, you can click the other taskbar icons to your heart's content and save yourself a mouse click in the process.