What the Heck is Happening to Windows? Article on Windows 8 Disaster

[kilele]

Mmm, some nice ideas  I hope some relevant folks incorporate some or all of these!

-ewemoa (March 20, 2014, 01:39 AM)

Glad you find them interesting, all the process of designing user interfaces must be really entertaining. You can read more ideas that I've added to my post from above :
https://www.donation....msg351603#msg351603
I have watched a few videos of Win8.1 and seems that now M$ is doing a nice work listening to the users community.

[Vurbal]

I think it's a little generous to call the problems with the Win8 interface PR related. They didn't successfully communicate the user benefits of the interface because their reasons for the changes had nothing to do with solving user problems. The entire point was solving Microsoft's impending revenue stream problem. It's the same reason they came up with Office 365.

The vast majority of Microsoft's profits come from volume licensing of Windows and Office. When they finally accepted the reality those revenue streams aren't sustainable in the long term they started flailing around for replacements. One was convincing individuals to license Office rather than buying it. The other was taking a cut of third party software sales via a walled garden. That's the whole reason Steve Ballmer went off the rails on his iPhone = brilliant / Android = confusing tangent after years of dismissing the iPhone.

Having said that, I find the Windows 8 desktop interface refreshing because eliminating the Start Menu stripped away more than a decade of mostly kludge. It leaves a lot more room for people who have a better idea (or even an ounce of give a damn) about what users want and need to do the job right by designing from the ground up. Unfortunately I think it doesn't go nearly far enough.

IMO Windows needs a total ground up redesign, not unlike what Apple did with OS X. The result would be a quick and somewhat painful death as it's being replaced by something leaner, meaner, and free of the virtual Rube Goldberg machine which is the registry. The alternative is a slow and agonizing death as people abandon the platform altogether.

As much as I appreciate the overall design brilliance of *nix based operating systems, I also believe in alternative approaches as a necessary component of technology development. Windows has too much legacy cruft baked into its core to be viable in the long term. However there is also a lot of interesting and useful technology that's been added over the years to prop up that legacy framework. An operating system built around those bits and the lessons learned along the way could be brilliant.

[40hz]

One was convincing individuals to license Office rather than buying it.

-Vurbal (March 20, 2014, 09:57 AM)

To be honest, IMO that's the only part of their new business model that makes even small sense within an admittedly limited number of use cases. Where it fits, it fits very well. For the rest of us...uh...I doesn't.

Attempting to create a walled garden isn't something that's going to be tolerated willingly. Especially now that enough developers have seen what Apple's iStore arrangement got them. One locked platform is bad enough. If Microsoft thinks to follow in Steve Jobs footsteps, they'll have a long uphill battle ahead of them. And at this juncture, they really can't afford to get into one.

The Win 8 desktop brings nothing of significance to the mix. It's different for the sake of different, ugly to look at, and makes little sense without a touchscreen. To call  it an improvement over the past is like saying Alcatraz was better than Levinworth Penitentiary because at least Alcatraz is in California and by the ocean. Microsft has to get off the way of thinking that says "Now sucks less!" is the same thing as "New and Improved!" when it comes to product design. (And while we're on the subject...could Microsoft please hire at least one designer who has some sense of color esthetics? Because whoever came up with that Fisher-Price color palette for Windows 8 either needs an eye exam-  or a new job. Preferably in the fast food or hospitality industry.)

IMO Windows needs a total ground up redesign, not unlike what Apple did with OS X.

-Vurbal (March 20, 2014, 09:57 AM)

Exactly. They could just license the Mach kernal (like Apple) did and wrap their own nonsense around it. Like Apple did. Seriously, why reinvent the wheel? The requirements and design principles of an OS are clearly understood and pretty well time-tested by now. There is a right way to do an OS.

Where the creativity and "Oooo-ahh!" comes in is in with the user interface. If you want to spend effort and resources coming up with something "insanely great" (or whatever  ) put the effort into the design and testing of the user interface. That and providing reliable hardware drivers. Do that and your millions of customers will love you forever - even if a few thousand consultants will "hates you forever gollum...gollum"  for putting them out of business by your doing so.

Of course Microsoft could just use the elegant Xfce windows manager...nah! Too easy. Too obvious.

Oh yeah...one more thing Microsoft? Ditch the Registry if you're still thinking in that direction? That was yet another "innovation"  that never really worked that well in practice. The simple fact that Microsoft itself frequently violated their own guidelines regarding the Registry - and also never fully (publicly) documented it - says all that really needs to be said about it.

What Microsoft needs to do is sit down and code an OS that both works and provides what's needed. Not constantly try to wow people with things they neither want or know how to use. Leave that for your app developers.

 

P.S. Microsoft - Either bring back stand-alone Flight Simulator or open up the source code for non-commercial use? Do at least something genuinely generous for once? That could be the start of a whole new "genuine advantage."

[wraith808]

IMO Windows needs a total ground up redesign, not unlike what Apple did with OS X.

-Vurbal (March 20, 2014, 09:57 AM)

I don't trust Microsoft to do it well.

[Vurbal]

One was convincing individuals to license Office rather than buying it.

-Vurbal (March 20, 2014, 09:57 AM)

To be honest, IMO that's the only part of their new business model that makes even small sense within an admittedly limited number of use cases. Where it fits, it fits very well. For the rest of us...uh...I doesn't.

-40hz (March 20, 2014, 11:12 AM)

And there certainly are use scenarios where it makes a lot of sense. Enterprise licensing isn't particularly cost effective if you're just looking at the cost of the software itself but combined with management and maintenance efficiencies it can be a significant bargain. Likewise if you include good support, and my experience with Microsoft's enterprise support was always good, it can also be a good value for many consumers.

Attempting to create a walled garden isn't something that's going to be tolerated willingly. Especially now that enough developers have seen what Apple's iStore arrangement got them. One locked platform is bad enough. If Microsoft thinks to follow in Steve Jobs footsteps, they'll have a long uphill battle ahead of them. And at this juncture, they really can't afford to get into one.

What Steve Ballmer and Steven Sinofsky completely missed was that Apple's walled garden wasn't a feature per se. It was something their customers are okay with because it adds to the overall experience of iOS. The reason Apple users are willing to accept their tight control over third party software is the superior out of the box experience for pretty much all their devices, from desktops and laptops down to smartphones and set-top boxes. It's not better for everyone, certainly not for me, but if what you mostly need is "it just works" it definitely is.

The Win 8 desktop brings nothing of significance to the mix. It's different for the sake of different, ugly to look at, and makes little sense without a touchscreen. To call  it an improvement over the past is like saying Alcatraz was better than Levinworth Penitentiary because at least Alcatraz is in California and by the ocean. Microsft has to get off the way of thinking that says "Now sucks less!" is the same thing as "New and Improved!" when it comes to product design. (And while we're on the subject...could Microsoft please hire at least one designer who has some sense of color esthetics? Because whoever came up with that Fisher-Price color palette for Windows 8 either needs an eye exam-  or a new job. Preferably in the fast food or hospitality industry.)

Just to be clear, I was referring to the traditional desktop. The Start Screen is obviously a completely different matter. It's arguably the ultimate object lesson to explain the philosophy of making everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. It's not just that their design team doesn't seem to have had anyone with actual UI expertise, or at least no one they were listening to. Puking the Start Menu up as a flat list on the Start Screen has to be one of the most monumentally retarded design blunders of all time.

IMO Windows needs a total ground up redesign, not unlike what Apple did with OS X.

-Vurbal (March 20, 2014, 09:57 AM)

Oh yeah...one more thing Microsoft? Ditch the Registry if you're still thinking in that direction? That was yet another "innovation"  that never really worked that well in practice. The simple fact that Microsoft itself frequently violated their own guidelines regarding the Registry - and also never fully (publicly) documented it - says all that really needs to be said about it.

I already mentioned this but it really can't be over emphasized. If you sit down and try to detail the problems in Windows you'll find that the registry is an integral part of nearly every one. More importantly it's an integral part of why they can't fix them without starting from scratch.

What Microsoft needs to do is sit down and code an OS that both works and provides what's needed. Not constantly try to wow people with things they neither want or know how to use.

The really frustrating thing for me is I know they have the in-house expertise to do just that. It's purely a question of whether their management has the vision or will to walk away from short term revenue and bet on the future. If they wait until that revenue stream dries up they likely won't have the necessary financial reserves to accomplish it. Waiting until you're desperate to take chances is an almost surefire recipe for failure.

[Vurbal]

IMO Windows needs a total ground up redesign, not unlike what Apple did with OS X.

-Vurbal (March 20, 2014, 09:57 AM)

I don't trust Microsoft to do it well.

-wraith808 (March 20, 2014, 11:50 AM)

I certainly don't trust their management to do it well. That's potentially an argument for why it might be better if Microsoft continues to bet on the past and wait for somebody else to take over and do things right after they drive themselves into the ground.

[wraith808]

Oh totally... I'm not saying that there aren't good people at MS.  And I think getting rid of the stack ranking was one of the things that showed that.  But... it's too top heavy in the end, when it comes to development.  At least it seems that way from the outside looking in.  And shite, not cream, rises to the top in those particular scenarios.

[40hz]

The single biggest barrier to redesigning Windows isn't a techncal issue. From my experience working for a Fortune 5 (not 500), the real problem is that any major change of direction in any large corporation will require that somebody (or some cabal) very high up in the hierarchy be called conclusively wrong.

In an era of stock analysts and personality cults in corporate governance that's about as likely to happen as the Catholic Church (my religious background so put down the torches please) renouncing the Doctrine of Infallibility. As in: "that is so NOT gonna happen," as the 7-year old daughter of one of my clients once put it.

To change direction and redo Windows is to admit the current paradigm (and all the silly arguments previously made for it) were wrong.

That doesn't slot well with Wall Street, because they've previously hailed the chief as "a genius" in public.

That doesn't slot well with the alpha-type personalities at the helms of most tech firms either. Because it calls into question just what it is that they (or any human being for that matter) brings to the party that they're worth "billions and billions" to parrot Carl Sagan. These are not the type of persons who want to admit a good portion of their success was far more due to being in the right place at the right time than it ever was to their intellectual brilliance, personal courage, ot their uncanny ability to see the future and make it real. These are gods we're talking about. And gods only exist as long as somebody still believes in them. (Watch the movie August for a great treatment of that topic.)

Nope, I've said it before and I'll say it again (with thanks to Gerry Weinberg). It's not a technical problem - it's a people problem. And any time it clearly isn't a people problem - you'd better look harder and again.

 

[Vurbal]

Nothing personal but I'd be a lot happier if I thought there was a chance  you guys were wrong. There really isn't though.

[40hz]

Nothing personal but I'd be a lot happier if I thought there was a chance  you guys were wrong. There really isn't though.

-Vurbal (March 20, 2014, 03:04 PM)

D'accord! I'm sure we'd be happier too.

[wraith808]

The whole *world* would be happier.  Especially because that would mean MS was changing.  But...

[40hz]

^ ...that is sooooo NOT gonna happen....

[zenzai]

I'm quite happy with Win 8.1, have it on 3 desktop machines now. The only thing I don't like is UAC which IMO is even worse than in Win 7 so I've turned it off completely (unlike in Win 7 this must be done via registry otherwise it won't be completely disabled).

[oblivion]

I've read this with some interest.

My main home desktop machine is an aging Vista box. I have used it to dip a toe in the Windows 8 water, by setting it up to dual boot to 64-bit 8.1.

My initial reaction was: I hated the Metro interface. Get me to the desktop, Jeeves, and make sure I never leave it again.

(It was worse than that. I have a Wacom graphics tablet that I use all the time as a mouse replacement. Under Vista, that's completely okay. Under Windows 7, once you've disabled flicks and all the other allegedly helpful things Windows does when it sees you wanting to use a stylus, that's okay too. Under Windows 8, some of the behaviours you don't want are really hard to get rid of. Some of them won't go at all. The right-click is really laggy, the left-click unresponsive and sometimes fails entirely. Yuck. I have tried to put up with it.)

The best solution to the loss of the start menu (Classic Start Menu) is pretty good.

However... I decided, after a week or three, that I wanted to see just why Metro was worth potentially alienating tracts of previously happy Windows users. So I set it back to the default screen.

The news app -- quite likeable once you get into the idea of horizontal scrolling -- tries hard to be useful and configurable and attractive. But I have to say, that's about it, on the apps front. I've dragged, stretched, moved, deleted, added and personalised and it still doesn't feel like MY working space. (That's because it's not? Well, quite.)

And at some point recently, something has gone terribly wrong. Now, all the apps do is load to a wash of colour then open the desktop. And apparently the only way to fix it is a full Windows reinstall. (Will I bother? Good question.)

You know what? It's only advantage is better security. (And I'm generally okay taking responsibility for that stuff anyway.) That aside, I actually don't think it's better than Vista. (But don't get me wrong: 7 knocks Vista into a cocked hat.)

I thought the fact that Vista occasionally just stops for a think -- CPU not maxed, no serious disk activity, nothing obvious going on apart maybe from the fact that you're trying to move all 60k of my documents\bilgepumpdiagram47.doc to my documents\bilge\2014\diagrams\ -- was one of the many known problems that Vista suffers from. If so, they fixed it in 7 and threw out the fix in 8.

Like many, I shall probably wait for 9 rather than fully migrate my desktop PC to 8.

[IainB]

Well, I have just upgraded from an HP laptop with Win7-64 to a Toshiba laptop with Win8.
I have to say I don't like the UI.
The system keeps urging me to upgrade to Win8.1 for free, but when I click the Download/Install button, the thing sits for ages trying to download an umpteen GB update file, then hangs at 50% with Error code: 0x80240031. This is consistently repeatable. A search of forums indicates that this is a common problem, with no defined fix/workaround.
The built-in Toshiba utilities updater has just downloaded a Toshiba utilities update which claims to prepare the Win8 OS for update to Win8.1.
We shall see.

[ander2255]

What melodrama. I got a new notebook with Windows 8, and after my initial panic, was pleased and pacified to find I could make it quite decently Win-7-ish with the free Classic Shell. (If someone's already mentioned that here, sorry; I don't have time to read the whole topic.) As Win 8 is clearly faster and more responsive than 7 (which was already great, IMHO), I really don't see what the problem is.

[40hz]

What melodrama.

-ander2255 (May 31, 2014, 09:50 PM)

Melodrama? Out of curiosity, how so?

[superboyac]

The single biggest barrier to redesigning Windows isn't a techncal issue. From my experience working for a Fortune 5 (not 500), the real problem is that any major change of direction in any large corporation will require that somebody (or some cabal) very high up in the hierarchy be called conclusively wrong.

In an era of stock analysts and personality cults in corporate governance that's about as likely to happen as the Catholic Church (my religious background so put down the torches please) renouncing the Doctrine of Infallibility. As in: "that is so NOT gonna happen," as the 7-year old daughter of one of my clients once put it.

To change direction and redo Windows is to admit the current paradigm (and all the silly arguments previously made for it) were wrong.

That doesn't slot well with Wall Street, because they've previously hailed the chief as "a genius" in public.

That doesn't slot well with the alpha-type personalities at the helms of most tech firms either. Because it calls into question just what it is that they (or any human being for that matter) brings to the party that they're worth "billions and billions" to parrot Carl Sagan. These are not the type of persons who want to admit a good portion of their success was far more due to being in the right place at the right time than it ever was to their intellectual brilliance, personal courage, ot their uncanny ability to see the future and make it real. These are gods we're talking about. And gods only exist as long as somebody still believes in them. (Watch the movie August for a great treatment of that topic.)

Nope, I've said it before and I'll say it again (with thanks to Gerry Weinberg). It's not a technical problem - it's a people problem. And any time it clearly isn't a people problem - you'd better look harder and again.

 

-40hz (March 20, 2014, 03:00 PM)

damn dude.  You keep blowing my mind lately.  Nice nice and nice.

[Carol Haynes]

What melodrama. I got a new notebook with Windows 8, and after my initial panic, was pleased and pacified to find I could make it quite decently Win-7-ish with the free Classic Shell. (If someone's already mentioned that here, sorry; I don't have time to read the whole topic.) As Win 8 is clearly faster and more responsive than 7 (which was already great, IMHO), I really don't see what the problem is.

-ander2255 (May 31, 2014, 09:50 PM)

You sure quicker/more responsive isn't just new install syndrome. I am using 8.1 on my laptop and after a few months it has started slowing down like all other versions of Windows??? Plus I have had to disable Fast Startup because it doesn't work properly on my laptop (and I have seen a number of customer machines not booting properly or at all because Fast Startup has screwed itself up).

[IainB]

Experiences of using Win8-64, updating to Win8.1, then upgrading to Win8.1 PRO.

Well, I have just upgraded from an HP laptop with Win7-64 to a Toshiba laptop with Win8.
I have to say I don't like the UI.
The system keeps urging me to upgrade to Win8.1 for free, but when I click the Download/Install button, the thing sits for ages trying to download an umpteen GB update file, then hangs at 50% with Error code: 0x80240031. This is consistently repeatable. A search of forums indicates that this is a common problem, with no defined fix/workaround.
The built-in Toshiba utilities updater has just downloaded a Toshiba utilities update which claims to prepare the Win8 OS for update to Win8.1.
We shall see.

-IainB (May 21, 2014, 06:56 AM)

(This is re Win 8-64.)
Following on from the above:
It was definitely a non-trivial exercise to run the Win 8.1 update. It just wouldn't run past the 50% mark.
After considerable investigative and tweaking effort spanning several days, I eventually established that the OEM installed Norton Antivirus (AnnoyWare) had disabled MS Security Essentials (now built-in to Windows Defender as standard in Win8), and had blocked the Realtime Scan of MBAM (Malwarebytes) that I installed.
Expunging Norton AV with prejudice (using RevoUninstaller and CCleaner registry clean) seemed to do the trick. I could then enable MS Security Essentials, and after reinstalling MBAM, MBAM could perform its realtime scan.
Then after a time-consuming exercise investigating and eliminating the causes of some critical error reports in the Event Viewer, I was able to eventually get:

• sfc /scannow
• Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

- to run to completion 100% with no errors and the component store repaired.
Then the Win 8.1 update was able to run automatically via Windows Update (like it should have). It took 2 or 3 hours to complete. (I was half asleep and didn't make a note of the time.)
One conclusion to this is that the OEM-installed Norton AV seems to have been somehow creating an error in the component store that effectively stopped the Win8.1 update from being able to complete. Expunginging Norton AV enabled the update.

With Win8.1 in place, I then started to migrate/install a lot of stuff from my old laptop onto the stable Win 8.1 platform. Everything went relatively smoothly, with one outcome being that I was singularly impressed with how solid the OS was and how it seemed to be superbly designed to make recovery from problems and errors very simple.
And it was (felt) faster than Win7.
I still disliked the UI, but at least it was a little better/somewhat improved in Win 8.1 from the Win8 incarnation.

To keep the OS and system generally clean and uncluttered, I periodically ran:

• CCEnhancer
• CCleaner
• sfc /scannow
• Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

(as necessary).

Then, a couple of days ago, I decided to try and upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 8.1 PRO (Professional). I wanted to use an unused licence for a Win8 PRO upgrade that I had previously purchased for about US$40 whilst it was just coming to the end of its "special offer" period, back in January 2014 when I was using Win7-64 Home Premium.
So I did some searching and came up with this very helpful post from October 29, 2013 which covered my case almost exactly: Easily Change Windows 8.1 Edition Without Reinstalling.

I followed the steps in that post, and to my great relief the upgrade was painless - it all took place without hitch in about 15 minutes elapsed time, including download and 2 auto-reboots. I then spent 30 minutes migrating/installing other software from my old Win7 disk, including the latest version of W7FC (Windows 7 Firewall Control) - for which I have a paid licence. The W7FC was a bit tedious, as it had to be taught all the rules for the programs as they were run.
I have come to the tentative conclusion that W7FC could well be redundant on the Win8 OS. (Some people may think it was redundant for Win7 too.)

So far I am very pleased with Win8.1 PRO.
If anything, it is/feels faster than the preceding Win8.1 version.
The UI is a bit different/slightly improved, but I still dislike certain aspects of it. I may set about fixing that to something that suits me better, now that the system has arrived at a stable end-point.
I shall now set about exploring the extra functionality that Win8.1-64 PRO offers, to see what use I can make of it.

[IainB]

Many thanks to the people in this discussion thread who referred to Classic Shell. As a result of their comments, a couple of days ago I went ahead and installed it for a trial.
Most of the things that I dislike (and that's putting it mildly) about Win8 are related to poor ergonomics and the superfluous Metro eye-candy and and its kludgy functionality in the UI. Those aspects of the OS are backward steps - but the OS otherwise seems very good.
However, pretty much all that I disliked is swept away by Classic Shell. It seems to be very stable too - which is a mandatory requirement for an OS interface (in my book, at any rate).
Perhaps the biggest bonus of Classic Shell for me is in the restoration of the very good Win7-type Start Menu and the instant search of my indexed documents and OneNote files when anything is typed into the Search box. This had completely disappeared in Win8 and was driving me batty - and lots of other OneNote users as well, judging from the comments in many of the OneNote discussion forums.
Classic Shell - definitely a keeper.