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Other Operating Systems => Windows 8 => Windows 8.1 Discussion => Topic started by: javajolt on March 05, 2012, 10:33:56 PM
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After a few days of working with the new version of Windows 8, it looks as if desktop users may be shortchanged.
Windows 8 Consumer Preview is one of the biggest changes that Microsoft has made to Windows, moving it from an operating system aimed at a single class of hardware (PCs and laptops) to one that spans a wide range of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
It's a gamble that only partially pays off. For tablets and smartphones, the new Metro interface is a clear winner: beautifully designed, simple to use, function-rich and offering a wealth of apps that bring information directly to users rather than requiring users to search it out.
For owners of traditional Windows-based computers, however, the results are mixed. Metro isn't as easy to navigate with a mouse and keyboard as it is with touch. In addition, the Windows Desktop is less useful in Windows 8 than it was in previous Windows versions for a number of reasons -- notably because the Start button has been taken away. As a result, Windows 8 feels like a transitional operating system, uneasily bridging the gap between traditional PCs and tablets, with more attention lavished on the latter.
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For tablets and smartphones, the new Metro interface is a clear winner.
Perhaps because of this -- and because, despite the growing popularity of tablets, most workers are still using desktop PCs and laptops -- I installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on a PC, and this review reflects its use on desktops and laptops rather than tablets.
I reviewed the Windows 8 Developer Preview when it came out, and this Consumer Preview is a considerably more polished piece of work. There have been many major interface changes, fixes and additions -- Microsoft claims that it's made more than 100,000 changes, although that's obviously impossible to verify. Key among the changes and additions are new navigation features, completely revamped Metro apps and the addition of "charms," tools that bring a variety of features such as Search within easy reach.
The Developer Preview was a hint of what the operating system would be; this Consumer Preview is a far more realized piece of work.
Welcome to Metro
Metro, which is patterned after the Windows Phone 7 interface, made its appearance in the Developer Preview, and it's been considerably improved, including the newfound ability to place apps into customized groups.
Windows 8 boots directly into the Windows 8 Metro Start screen. Rather than seeing the traditional Windows Desktop, you're greeted by a group of large colorful tiles, each of which is a separate app. (To show how Microsoft has relegated the Desktop to the sidelines, the Desktop is merely one app among many on the Start screen. It's also the only app that isn't written for Metro.)
Metro apps are "live" -- that is, they can grab information from elsewhere, such as from social networking services or other Internet locations, and use it and display it right in the tile itself. So the weather app, for example, displays the current weather, a stock app displays current stock prices, a calendar displays current meetings, and a social networking app (called People) can display the latest updates from social networking services. In this way, you don't have to open many of the apps to reap their benefits; all you need to do is glance at them onscreen. You can, of course, click on any app to launch it in order to get more information and interact with it.
Metro is very clearly designed for tablets, because the tiles are all quite large, even those that don't display changing information. There are so many tiles that they scroll off to the right of the screen. On a tablet, you use the swipe gesture to see them. On a traditional computer, you need to scroll to the right, which is a lot more awkward. Although the Metro start screen is aesthetically pleasing, I found myself longing for the Desktop's more efficient use of real estate, where I could to see all my apps on a single screen.
That being said, the Start screen is easy to customize, so you can make sure that all of the apps you use regularly are immediately visible. And you can remove apps pinned to the Start screen by right-clicking (or, on the keyboard, Ctrl-right clicking); a menu appears at the bottom of the screen that lets you unpin, resize or uninstall the app. Not all apps can be resized, though -- Microsoft's cloud-based SkyDrive storage service can't, for example.
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A menu appears at the bottom of the screen that lets you unpin, resize or uninstall the app.
You can also put tiles into their own groups as an easy way to see related apps at a glance. Click a small icon at the bottom right corner of the screen and all the apps on the Start screen shrink into a small space. Move tiles anywhere you want on the screen, including into groups. You right-click a group to name it. Click anywhere on the Start screen and the tiles return to their normal size.
Of course, not all apps are necessarily visible on the Start screen. To see all your apps, you right-click on the Start screen and click the "All apps" icon that appears at the bottom of the screen. You'll then see every app listed, along with small tiles that represent each. Right-click any app to pin it to or unpin it from the Start menu (or to/from the Desktop taskbar -- the same taskbar you'll find in Windows Vista and Windows 7 -- if it's a Desktop app). Depending on the app, you may have more options as well. For a Desktop-based app, you'll be able to also uninstall it, open it in a new Window, run it as an administrator, or launch Windows Explorer opened to the location where the application is installed.
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To see all your apps, you right-click on the Start screen and click the "All apps" icon that appears at the bottom of the screen.
Pity the poor Desktop
It's not just that Microsoft has ignored the Desktop; it has also made it less functional than it was in previous versions of Windows. When you click the Desktop tile on the Metro Start screen, you're sent to what is essentially the old Windows Desktop, including the taskbar at the bottom, icons for launching programs, and so on. It looks and works like the Desktop you've grown used to over the years, with a few minor changes.
The biggest change, and possibly the worst one, is that the Desktop no longer has the Start button -- which feels to me like a step back. In Windows 7 and Windows Vista, the Start button was a paragon of simplicity, packing many useful features into a small amount of real estate. You could click it to launch recently run programs and the programs you most commonly run, to search your computer and the Internet, to open documents you'd recently used, to run the Control Panel, and to see a menu of all the programs on your computer, among other tasks. Taking away the Start button makes the Desktop less useful than it was in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
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When you click the Desktop tile on the Metro Start screen, you're sent to what is essentially the old Windows Desktop.
The Quick Launch bar has also been eliminated. In Windows 7 and Windows Vista, that bar made it easy to quickly launch the applications you most commonly use. In Windows 8, you can no longer do that, because the bar is gone.
Because the Start button has been killed, so has its search box, and that's a loss. To do a search, you now have to move your mouse to the upper right or lower right portion of the screen, and select the Search charm.
And the search you can perform simply isn't as good as the older version. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, the search displayed multiple results in a small, easy-to-scan list, and let you quickly switch between searching your computer and the Internet. Not so with the Search charm -- it drops you into a Metro interface in which each result takes up more real estate. The new Search charm does let you more easily narrow your search -- still, Microsoft should have kept the old Desktop search, to give you a choice of different search methods.
The Desktop also isn't integrated well with Metro. Inside Metro apps, for example, the Settings charm is context sensitive -- those settings are specific to the app you're running. But inside the Desktop, the charm isn't, and doesn't relate to the app itself. Rather, it relates to the Desktop.
On the plus side, the Desktop seems to run Desktop-based Windows applications with no problems. I ran SugarSync, Microsoft Office and Libre Office with no trouble.
Navigation and mousing around
Although the large tiles practically cry out to be touched rather than clicked upon, Metro is still navigable using a mouse. If you're like me, at first you'll find it takes some getting used to. But after a full day, I found myself comfortable with it, so much so that when I went back to my Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines, I occasionally found myself using the Windows 8 mouse movements (to no avail, of course).
Apps themselves are launched with single clicks rather than double-clicks. Although the navigation inside Metro apps varies on an app-by-app basis, generally you'll find yourself using scroll bars. (On a tablet, you'd be swiping to your heart's content.)