Purportedly Leaked Windows 9 Screenshot Shows New Start Menu

[dalekphalm]

 

I think it's funny that you mess up "you're" and "your" when calling me incompetent...

Please, explain to me how I am incompetent for not liking having my programs taken away from me every once in a while just because I want to launch a new program.

Again, there is no reason to force me to have a full screen start screen. For my way of doing things, a smart menu is far superior and Microsoft basically gave me the middle finger with Windows 8. Stop with your childish insults like "you're incompetent and I won't explain why lol".

 

 

Win + X is still more convoluted than just having a button that says "Control Panel".

Again, why make it more difficult to reach something very common things in the OS? If you call this trolling then you either don't know the definition of trolling, or is a hardcore Microsoft fanboy who gets mad as soon as someone says they don't like Windows 8.

I explained in detail how it breaks my workflow, you replied with "you're incompetent" and then I get accused of trolling? What's wrong with you? You're acting as if I insulted your mom by simply saying (in a calm and detailed manner) how Windows 8 is worse than 7 for me.

 

 

How was Aero garbage? I thought it looked good and the transparency made it easier to determine the relation between the windows if they were overlapping each other.

 

 

I'm not him and I don't particularity dislike IE, but here are a few reasons why I don't use it:

• Tab bar is too small. I prefer having tabs on a separate bar so that I can fit more of them on there. It works alright as long as you don't open more than a handful of tabs but once you do you start wanting more space.

   

• The GUI doesn't put important elements on the sides or in the corner. This is a big pantsu-on-head-retarded move from Microsoft if you ask me. According to Fits' law, buttons located in corners and the side are infinity big (no matter how much you move your mouse upwards it will still stay on the button) and are therefore much easier to press. This is the reason why pretty much all modern browsers (Firefox, Chrome etc) has the tabs pushed against the top. Microsoft for some reason decided to not do this.

   

• it's still lagging behind in terms of supporting standards. I mean... This and this should be pretty telling. Microsoft likes to compare their browser against others in tests they have created themselves and claiming that they support standards, but they don't.

   

• The addon support is not anywhere near as good as Firefox.

   

• It's closed source. I wouldn't have cared a few years ago but with all the crap Microsoft have been caught doing, and all the crap the NSA have been doing I see closed source as a huge drawback.

 

 

I hope you don't mind if I only address the last section of your post here. FYI I think the way you've been treated in this thread is unacceptable. While I personally like Windows 8, that doesn't make you a "dumbass" because you personally don't like it.

 

Anyway back to the post! Interesting, see this is exactly the kind of information I wanted deathjester to provide. Specific, quantifiable examples of why IE 11 isn't as good as the other major browsers.

 

1. Tabs - Frankly I'm not happy with any of the 3 major's tab setup at the moment. I like the way Chrome does it best I suppose, but the issue is that I find the tabs too close to the top of the window. I use "Windows Snap" a lot (Snapping the window to the left half of the screen for example, or quickly fullscreening a window by dragging it), and if I have a full window of tabs open, it can often be difficult to grab that small "empty" space above the tabs when I'm in a hurry.

2. I'm not sure I 100% understand what you mean here. I just opened up IE 11 and compared it to Chrome, and the UI elements actually look damn similar in placement. Could you take a screenshot of IE and use paint or whatever to just highlight what you mean? I'll fully admit I don't use IE on a regular basis, so perhaps I just don't grasp the flaw you're speaking of.

3. I'll just go ahead and give you that. I can definitely see that IE 11 is lagging behind in some of the HTML5/other (CSS etc) features. While this has always been the case, you must admit that it is a lot better then it used to be. Either way, you win this round. And yeah frankly I'm not surprised Microsoft uses tests that they themselves create, but then many manufacturers/devs do this (AMD or NVidia at every press conference ever). This just highlights the importance of unbiased independent testing, such as your first two links.

4. Definitely true. But IE has never been big about add-ons. While this is definitely a "con" for many, it does also keep things simple.

5. This last point I think is up to each persons individual opinion. I don't mind if things are closed source. Open source doesn't always auto"magically" make things better. Certainly there are a lot of benefits of open source these days, with NSA, etc, as you mention, but closed source isn't inherently bad.

[wrath]

I personally didnt use win7 that much but i am more than fine with win8.1 and the metro style, i kinda like metro more

I think people are just too lazy or dont want to bother learning it(its easy to find anything though i.e. search) or just dont like the changes

[mr moose]

It appears if you like windows or aren't willing to condemn a company based on unsubstantiated rumors then you are clearly an astroturfer or employed by said company, because clearly In a forum with god knows how many 000's of member's there is not room nor possibility that some will actually like windows or the MS ecosystem. :rolleyes:

[LAwLz]

Oh shit, so sorry for typing fast and not being a native English speaker, I'm sure you've never ever ever made that mistake.

Besides, my comment had nothing to do with English competence, but your technical knowledge is seriously in question.

Okay seriously... How is my "technical knowledge seriously in question"? Because I don't like Microsoft's GUI? That doesn't have anything to do with my "technical knowledge". It's just that it doesn't fit the way I use my computer.

 

 

You programs are not being take anywhere, if you can't decide what you wanna start before you go to the Start menu, then maybe you can close it or something, I dunno, it's so very hard to use this UI, I can't make up my mind. It takes me about 2 seconds to start a program from the Start menu, I won't be able to read anything in that time. Especially if I was using Windows 7 style start menu with the tiny ass icons, where you CAN'T be doing anything other than looking at what you're (<-see) looking for.

 

Again, I don't know how this is even a fucking discussion, you obviously have huge issues using ANY UI.

But they ARE being taken away from me. Every time I want to launch a program I don't have a shortcut for the huge start screen blocks all my programs that are currently opened. This simply does not happen on Windows 7 because the start menu doesn't block the entire screen. I don't understand how you can't grasp this.

99% of the times I bring up the start menu I do know what I want. That doesn't matter through because the start screen still blocks everything. Let's say it takes 2 seconds to start a program from the start screen. If I turned off your monitor for 2 seconds every once in a while it would drive you nuts, right? I know it would drive me nuts, especially when there isn't any reason for doing it. So let's say it would take me 2 seconds, and I use it maybe 15 times a day. That's 30 seconds a day that I can't see anything on my monitor on Windows 8 (and on Windows 7 zero of these seconds are lost since I can continue doing things). 30 seconds a day, 365 days a year. That's over 3 hours lost each year. Don't downplay the importance of saving a few seconds here and a few seconds there.

It's pretty significant even if you don't add it all up over a year. I read at about 300 WPM. That's 5 words a second, which means every time I read something and brings up the start menu, I would fall 10 words behind compared to on Windows 7. Not only would I fall behind but it also has the problem of being very jarring.

 

I am not having issues with "any UI". I am having issues with UIs that hinders me from doing what I want as efficiently as possible. I am perfectly satisfied with a lot of UIs. MPC-HC, my customized Foobar2000, MKVmerge GUI, Firefox, Windows 7 for the most part, Notepad, VMware Player and the list goes on.

 

 

The reason Win+X is much better would be super-clear if you ever had to support anyone. People who need those options will find them just as easy as before and the idiots who you don't want messing in there won't go there by accident. And that is the reason and btw, it's FAR from common. To you and me maybe it's common, but we (as in people of our ilk) aren't even near 1% of the user base.

Calling me a Microsoft fanboy is kinda funny, I'm far from it, I fucking hated 8 when I saw it, then I actually used it and guess what, it wasn't nearly as bad and from a support point of view it was way way way better. Unlike XP, which utter horseshit to support.

I didn't call you a fanboy. I gave two explanations of why you might have called me a troll and you yourself picked the "I am a fanboy" option. Personally I was leaning towards the "don't know the definition of a troll" explanation but whatever.

I don't really see how "Hold down ctrl and then press X to bring up the control panel" is "super clear" compared to "press start and then "control panel" to bring up the control panel". I'd think the "idiots" (as you call them) would be more confused with pressing multiple keys at the same time, instead of just using the left mouse button and pressing the things which are clearly labeled with what they are, like press "control panel" to bring up the control panel.

 

It's strange because I am actually the exact opposite as you. I thought Metro was good at first but then when I started using it I thought "damn... This is shit". I used to defend Windows 8 A LOT before it was released but since the release I have pretty much only had negative things to say about it. There are some improvements here and there but the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits for me.

[TAK]

.

[dalekphalm]

That is what I'm trying to tell you, they can't get to it by accident and fuck everything up and people who _know_ what they're doing, still get to it easy enough. Seriously, maybe you're not a troll, maybe you just have a serious reading comprehension issue.

Okay man that's far enough. While I agree with many of your points on Windows 8, this insulting (on BOTH SIDES) has gotten completely out of hand. Bring it back to the OP, stop making personal insults, or take it elsewhere. I'm sure I'm not the only one fed up with the insults and personal attacks.

[LAwLz]

I hope you don't mind if I only address the last section of your post here. FYI I think the way you've been treated in this thread is unacceptable. While I personally like Windows 8, that doesn't make you a "dumbass" because you personally don't like it.

 

Anyway back to the post! Interesting, see this is exactly the kind of information I wanted deathjester to provide. Specific, quantifiable examples of why IE 11 isn't as good as the other major browsers.

Thank you for your kind words. Anyway back to the IE debate.

 

 

1. Tabs - Frankly I'm not happy with any of the 3 major's tab setup at the moment. I like the way Chrome does it best I suppose, but the issue is that I find the tabs too close to the top of the window. I use "Windows Snap" a lot (Snapping the window to the left half of the screen for example, or quickly fullscreening a window by dragging it), and if I have a full window of tabs open, it can often be difficult to grab that small "empty" space above the tabs when I'm in a hurry.

You prefer Chrome? I think Chrome has two issues with its tabs. 1) The minimum size is far too small. 2) No area to grabbing the window in (for moving it around and stuff).

I mean look at how messy Chrome is compared to Firefox:

 

 

I used to have additional space added to the right of my tabs in Firefox but sadly, with the move to Australis I can no longer do this. I used to have the extra space of nothingness next to my tabs as a "handle" which I could grab. I still have a "handle" to the right of the tab grouping button (directly to the left of the minimize button), but it'd like it to be about twice as big. So yeah, I agree that they should have some "empty space" so that you can grab it, but I want it to be a small area and not the entire row above the tabs.

 

 

2. I'm not sure I 100% understand what you mean here. I just opened up IE 11 and compared it to Chrome, and the UI elements actually look damn similar in placement. Could you take a screenshot of IE and use paint or whatever to just highlight what you mean? I'll fully admit I don't use IE on a regular basis, so perhaps I just don't grasp the flaw you're speaking of.

Well this is basically what I talked before in this post. The tabs are not on the top like in Firefox and Chrome.

It makes it far more difficult to press than it has to. That's it really. Not much more to say.

 

 

3. I'll just go ahead and give you that. I can definitely see that IE 11 is lagging behind in some of the HTML5/other (CSS etc) features. While this has always been the case, you must admit that it is a lot better then it used to be. Either way, you win this round. And yeah frankly I'm not surprised Microsoft uses tests that they themselves create, but then many manufacturers/devs do this (AMD or NVidia at every press conference ever). This just highlights the importance of unbiased independent testing, such as your first two links.

Yes I will admit that it has gotten better, but yeah they are still behind.

I am more okay with Nvidia and AMD doing their own tests and publishing them because standards aren't that important when designing a GPU as long as it works.

For a web browser though, everything is designed around standards and if a browser like Internet Explorer doesn't follow them we end up with one of two scenarios. Scenario one is that the developer has to put in a lot more time and effort to make sure the website uses different techniques based on which browser you visit it with. Scenario two is that the website is simply broken in some browsers.

At least with GPUs we only have a handful of standards (like DirectX and OpenGL) and they are being followed pretty damn well.

 

 

4. Definitely true. But IE has never been big about add-ons. While this is definitely a "con" for many, it does also keep things simple.

You're 100% right.

I was just listing the reasons why I don't use it. If you don't care about addons or IE has the ones you want then good for you. Sadly that doesn't apply to me.

 

 

5. This last point I think is up to each persons individual opinion. I don't mind if things are closed source. Open source doesn't always auto"magically" make things better. Certainly there are a lot of benefits of open source these days, with NSA, etc, as you mention, but closed source isn't inherently bad.

Yes closed source is not inherently bad, but to me that is just one more nail in the coffin for IE.

It's not as big as the other nails but it is hammered in nonetheless.

I don't even see any reason why they keep it closed source, while the competitors are open source.

[mr moose]

That is what I'm trying to tell you, they can't get to it by accident and fuck everything up and people who _know_ what they're doing, still get to it easy enough. Seriously, maybe you're not a troll, maybe you just have a serious reading comprehension issue.

It's easy to misinterpret written language.  We all have a particular agenda in mind when discussing and we interpret based on that agenda.   It's just a human trait and one that we all overlook at times. 

 

That is why sometimes after 3 pages of heated discussion we often realise that we agree with 90% of what the other person is saying.    There are few exceptions of course.   Like apple debates for example. :huh:

[LAwLz]

That is what I'm trying to tell you, they can't get to it by accident and fuck everything up and people who _know_ what they're doing, still get to it easy enough. Seriously, maybe you're not a troll, maybe you just have a serious reading comprehension issue.

But it's far less intuitive. I didn't know about Ctrl + X until this thread, and I used Windows 8 for about a year until I finally gave up on it.

A far better option would have been to let us enable a link to it (like in Windows 7, pic related) but have it turned off by default if Microsoft though it did more harm than good for the average Joe.

They should give users more choice, not less.

 

[LeTexan]

Well, In the end, we all agree that MS made one big mistake : they forgot the number one rule !

 

People are stupid.

 

They were naive enough to think that after more than 10 years, the so-called power users did knew how to use their OS the best way possible. When they are actually still using they mouse for such trivial things as "click on the start menu, click on the search bar, enter your search, click on the search icon", when really, all it take is "WIN + S, enter your search, press ENTER".

Such a huge mistake, people are love their star menu, a UX piece of engineering from Windows 95. YES 95. Internet barely existed back then. All our usage of mail, social network, entertainment apps did not existed.

So they made an experiment, were people familiar enough with Windows to accept a new way to consumes their mails, their news feeds?

I don't know if it was clever to do it that upfront.

I don't remember when but, a MS UX evangelist told me once that it was a part of a bigger plan.

If there is power users and there is casual, children, elderly-kind of users, they shouldn't have to be imprisoned within the same experience. "One OS, many usages". With the evolution of the market, the rise of the tablets and smart-phones, which incarnate those casualness (you don't want to work on a 10" screen right ?) transform this idea in "Many Devices, one Experience/OS".

But you will probably tell me "Dude, this is non-sense, first you tell me 2 experiences, now you tell me 1 experience!".

And you would be right. so why did they do it anyway ?

Because child and elderly just use Facebook. They don't search, they don't experiment. And so they would never have heard of this "Modern UI" or "Metro" stuff. Now they do, I guarantee it.

And they will release a new Windows 9 which will do that :

If you want to work => you are on a PC => power user ENHANCED desktop experience (Yes, they will enhanced the desktop experience, now that mainly power users will use it. And workers, but workers don't power use, they work, that the point, it's not perfect but nobody never complained in 15 years about that point so...).

If you are on a touch enabled device => you want to surf, to see your mails, to chat on facebook, to talk on skype, to take selfies, to write notes from classes and only that, you deserve an experience designed for this casual usage. Allowing you to have fast access to informations. Why do you think there is apps notifications in Windows 8 ? Because it's not suppose to be more complicated to use than a smart-phone.

 

And in the end, the casual users, which represent the very vast majority of Windows users, (reminder !) have a powerful and handy experience, the same on all there devices.

And in the end, the power users, which prefer to "power use" on their PC, can do it with a more complex and powerful desktop experience. Because if you put a such powerful interface within child hands, you can say bye-bye to your PC and buy another one, or even worse (for them, well everyone need to live, right ?), make elderly rage-quit and abandon PCs. 

 

And they lived happily ever after.

 

See, it wasn't that difficult to understand it.

 

Concerning the screen leak, since it will be fully customizable (it's Windows, not IOS, please calm down) it will allow me see news and mails and Facebook updates and "whatever I want" updates under the push of ONE finger, I know, so futuristic, much awesomeness blablabla. But it wasn't doable before. Wait it was, but as I said, it was a move.

If you don't understand my explanation, please, don't ask me any questions, don't react, don't comment, just go buy an IMac or build a Hackintosh or a Linux. ( I do like Mint and ScentOS but I use mainly use it for adminstration work so...). I've heard the next update of MacOS is tremendous, like ... hum .. new icons and ...hum... integrated Bing ( which is actually not that bad anymore, tried use it during a month, only used Goggle for five really precise technicals questions, ... well beside Bing news, still crappy).

 

Have a nice day !

[TAK]

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[LAwLz]

Well, In the end, we all agree that MS made one big mistake : they forgot the number one rule !

 

People are stupid.

 

They were naive enough to think that after more than 10 years, the so-called power users did knew how to use their OS the best way possible. When they are actually still using they mouse for such trivial things as "click on the start menu, click on the search bar, enter your search, click on the search icon", when really, all it take is "WIN + S, enter your search, press ENTER".

Oh great... Another person calling me stupid because I don't like Metro. Geez... I wonder why so many people are upset with the people defending Microsoft on this forum.

 

 

Please see this post I made earlier.

I don't click on the start menu with my mouse, nor do I click on the search icon, and yet Windows 8 is still worse for me. Even IF the whole "let's block your entire screen for no reason" issue was fixed you still have to admit that WIN + S is more difficult to use than just WIN alone. I don't get why they changed search like that.

 

 

Such a huge mistake, people are love their star menu, a UX piece of engineering from Windows 95. YES 95. Internet barely existed back then. All our usage of mail, social network, entertainment apps did not existed.

"Argumentum ad novitatem".

The fact that the start menu was introduced in Windows 95 is completely irrelevant. Buttons is even older than the start menu but I think we can all agree that having buttons in a GUI is a good thing. The keyboard is also very old but still very very good and useful.

The start menu i Windows 95 looks next to nothing like the one in Windows 8, and definitely not like the one in Windows 9 or whenever Microsoft will release it.

 

 

I don't remember when but, a MS UX evangelist told me once that it was a part of a bigger plan.

If there is power users and there is casual, children, elderly-kind of users, they shouldn't have to be imprisoned within the same experience. "One OS, many usages". With the evolution of the market, the rise of the tablets and smart-phones, which incarnate those casualness (you don't want to work on a 10" screen right ?) transform this idea in "Many Devices, one Experience/OS".

But you will probably tell me "Dude, this is non-sense, first you tell me 2 experiences, now you tell me 1 experience!".

And you would be right. so why did they do it anyway ?

Because child and elderly just use Facebook. They don't search, they don't experiment. And so they would never have heard of this "Modern UI" or "Metro" stuff. Now they do, I guarantee it.

I think everyone here had already figured this out a long time ago.

What I dislike is that they went "you are going to use Windows the way we tell you!" instead of just giving users the options to use it however they like. Make Windows as dumbed down (or whatever you want to call it) as you want, as long as you give me the option to configure it to my liking. When your userbase is this big you shouldn't remove things and start going for a "one size fits all" kind of deal because some users will inevitably suffer from it.

Also, I think my explanation I posted here played a big role in the whole "Metro is mandatory in Windows 8!" decision.

 

 

And in the end, the casual users, which represent the very vast majority of Windows users, (reminder !) have a powerful and handy experience, the same on all there devices.

And in the end, the power users, which prefer to "power use" on their PC, can do it with a more complex and powerful desktop experience. Because if you put a such powerful interface within child hands, you can say bye-bye to your PC and buy another one, or even worse (for them, well everyone need to live, right ?), make elderly rage-quit and abandon PCs.

Wait... What? Buy a new PC because some child messed around with it? Ehh... At worst you'd have to reinstall the OS. At best you could just fix whatever thing they did in a few minutes.

Windows doesn't really let you do any harm by default. Not even the admin has write permissions for critical system files, and settings can always be changed back.

 

 

Concerning the screen leak, since it will be fully customizable (it's Windows, not IOS, please calm down) it will allow me see news and mails and Facebook updates and "whatever I want" updates under the push of ONE finger, I know, so futuristic, much awesomeness blablabla. But it wasn't doable before. Wait it was, but as I said, it was a move.

If you don't understand my explanation, please, don't ask me any questions, don't react, don't comment, just go buy an IMac or build a Hackintosh or a Linux. ( I do like Mint and ScentOS but I use mainly use it for adminstration work so...). I've heard the next update of MacOS is tremendous, like ... hum .. new icons and ...hum... integrated Bing ( which is actually not that bad anymore, tried use it during a month, only used Goggle for five really precise technicals questions, ... well beside Bing news, still crappy).

Window is far less customizable than people give it credit for, and it got even worse with the release of Windows 8.

Hopefully Microsoft will make the new start menu quite customizable but I wouldn't really bet on it (and no, just changing which tiles are displayed is not what I'd consider "fully customizable").

[LAwLz]

Less intuitive for Joe Average and as I said, that is nothing but a good thing.

Technically they gave us the same options, one is just hidden.

How did they give us the same options exactly? To me it seems like they removed the option of having the control panel as a link, as well as a bunch of other things.

[Trik'Stari]

[hidden behind the start menu, a giant middle finger]

[MattGameDev]

[hidden behind the start menu, a giant middle finger]

This.

 

Enough Said. End of Topic.