Windows 8 public beta released

[d000hg]

Metro is very primitive dumbed down interface - looks like Metro apps can only be maximised which goes completely against flexible concept of Windows that can interlap as the user feels like, something that made Microsoft successful in the first place.

How many times... use Desktop mode if you want traditional Windows rather than mobile-style tiles.

[AtW]

How many times... use Desktop mode if you want traditional Windows rather than mobile-style tiles.

But I can't really because the system forces you back to Metro when, say you press Windows Start button on keyboard - essentially they are forcing everybody to be exposed to Metro which will be the initial starting point.

[Sysman]

Abject failure!

Restarted with an added disk, set the thing off but now it wants 20GB free disk space.

It has completely ignored the extra 40GB disk I've just given it.

[d000hg]

But I can't really because the system forces you back to Metro when, say you press Windows Start button on keyboard - essentially they are forcing everybody to be exposed to Metro which will be the initial starting point.

No, they're forcing you to use a Metro-style start menu only. Think of it as a big ugly new Start menu.

[AtW]

No, they're forcing you to use a Metro-style start menu only. Think of it as a big ugly new Start menu.

Why should I be forced to do anything when I pay them money for supposedly new better product?

There are no technical reasons why they could not have kept Start buttin in desktop and avoid making people go to Metro if they do not want to. Frankly this tulip was started with Office 2007 and that Ribbon crap and now same attitude towards paying users has moved over to main OS.

[d000hg]

Why should I be forced to do anything when I pay them money for supposedly new better product?

From a software developer, that really is a stupid question/comment. EVERY single software application forces users to work in a certain way. Including your M12 software... it forces me to work the way you decided is best.

[AtW]

From a software developer, that really is a stupid question/comment. EVERY single software application forces users to work in a certain way. Including your M12 software... it forces me to work the way you decided is best.

We've spent a lot of effort to maintain backwards compatibility for a long of features to ensure customers who've used it 4 years ago still happy to use, in fact we normally just extended and introduced new functionality without removing old which is always readily available.

You might be a developer but you certainly don't understand how to run a proper business which has got established customer base - it needs to be kept happy in order to secure recurring payments especially in cases when it is a one off software sale rather than subscription. In this case making a mistake (like with Vista) can cost a LOT - it is totally unnecessary commercialy to force users who are happy with desktop experience to have completely new tablet experience which may or may not work. That's just dumb commercially and I hope stock market will punish Microsoft severely once first new of poor adoption become known.

All they needed to do (just like with Office) is to provide customers with simple toggle - those who don't want Metro tulip or Office ribbons should get what they pay for, this isn't expensive and if you are as software developer object to such essential commercial then you should be fired and spend the rest of your life on the dole.

HTH

[Sysman]

Abject failure!

Restarted with an added disk, set the thing off but now it wants 20GB free disk space.

It has completely ignored the extra 40GB disk I've just given it.

A little bit of digging on t'net got me there.

• Use VirtualBox GUI tp clone Win7 to Win8 (only 'cos I want to keep my Win7 installation intact)
• Create a new disk of the required size in VirtualBox
• Make sure the VBoxManage app is in your path (I'd already done this)
• Open up a command prompt and navigate to the directoy where Win8.vdi and the new Win8-bigger-disk.vdi is

• VBoxManage clonehd Win8.vdi Win8-bigger-disk1.vdi --existing

• In the VirtualBox GUI, remove Win8.dvi
• Start 'er up- Contrary to what I said before, there is now a desktop icon "Install Windows"
• Follow the prompts

If I could have been arsed to look it up, I could have done all that from the command prompt.

[Sysman]

We've spent a lot of effort to maintain backwards compatibility for a long of features to ensure customers who've used it 4 years ago still happy to use, in fact we normally just extended and introduced new functionality without removing old which is always readily available.

You might be a developer but you certainly don't understand how to run a proper business which has got established customer base - it needs to be kept happy in order to secure recurring payments especially in cases when it is a one off software sale rather than subscription. In this case making a mistake (like with Vista) can cost a LOT - it is totally unnecessary commercialy to force users who are happy with desktop experience to have completely new tablet experience which may or may not work. That's just dumb commercially and I hope stock market will punish Microsoft severely once first new of poor adoption become known.

Alexei, you are correct. Things move slowly in the corporate world and they will not upgrade the rest just to suit one app. In spite of a growing trend to support only the newest OS version, that might be fine for iThingies, but corporate users need longer term support.

[d000hg]

We've spent a lot of effort to maintain backwards compatibility for a long of features to ensure customers who've used it 4 years ago still happy to use, in fact we normally just extended and introduced new functionality without removing old which is always readily available.

And that leads to bloated, messy, hard to use software - like MSOffice just before they added the Ribbon.

All they needed to do (just like with Office) is to provide customers with simple toggle - those who don't want Metro tulip or Office ribbons should get what they pay for, this isn't expensive and if you are as software developer object to such essential commercial then you should be fired and spend the rest of your life on the dole.

You sound more like a clueless manager than a developer... "it's easy you just add a button. It can't take more than 5 minutes to add a button".

Anyone who designs software to let users control every possible option themselves is a programmer working above their level, not a software designer. This kind of approach is endemic in the open-source world and leads to very powerful software with impossibly complicated UI/UX.

AtW you're clearly a 'nuts & bolts' coder, not a UI guy. It comes across in everything you say and until you hired someone a while ago, it was also very evident from the M12 website too.