It’s great and all that Microsoft has made an attempt to integrate third-party services directly into Windows 8 – in fact, the feature (found in both the People and Messaging apps, to name a few) made our list of “8 Things We Love About Windows 8.”
What we don’t love, however, is the fact that Microsoft’s the one dictating which services get invited to the Windows 8 party and which are left sad and alone at home. We envision a future where we can only use Windows 8 to manage a handful of social networks and instead have to use Internet Explorer – or, more likely, a browser that isn’t horrible – to catch our friends elsewhere. Or perhaps some other third-party apps: You’re not going to find your Steam contacts within Windows 8’s contact list, nor your AIM, Yahoo, or Google Chat friends within Messaging (as of right now within the Consumer Preview), et cetera.
We would have much preferred Microsoft to make a handshake instead of a closed fist. Why not offer an easy method for giving third-party apps and services the ability to organize a data stream that could then be pulled into Windows 8’s big apps? And then, if users wanted, they can go about setting up their Windows apps almost like an RSS reader, adding the services they care about instead of integrating third-party services Microsoft thinks they should care about.
And heaven help the person who runs more than one Twitter account or checks more than one Gmail account– you can currently only tie your Windows apps to a single account per Windows user account.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself.” – George Bernard Shaw
Or, to say it another way, there’s no need to fix that which wasn’t broken. Worse, that which Windows users were familiar with (and fond of) based on their experiences with operating system’s many versions over the last many years.
Here’s a “brief” list of things we miss, having made the (temporary) switch to Windows 8:
Now that Microsoft is playing in the cloud – giving users the ability to transfer their files and settings across any Windows 8 systems they log into with their Microsoft Account – it’s time for Microsoft to up the ante when it comes to the security options it offers its accountholders.
We’d love to see at least some information on the Microsoft Account website to indicate which systems a person has logged in on using his or her Microsoft Account – better still, some way to block that login from being accepted on a particular PC if you don’t want that system or its user to have access to you any longer. Cooler still would be some kind of two-way authentication factored into Microsoft’s login process (we know, we know; more security steps) to ensure that even an attacker with physical access to your system and all your credentials will still have a heck of a time breaking into your Window 8 account.
In a perfect world, Microsoft would even give Windows 8 users a nuclear option: The ability to set a previously registered computer for a complete and full format the next time Windows 8 boots. While an Internet-based kill switch might be a little drastic, it’s a pretty big deal that Windows 8 is tying so much of one’s life into the cloud. If we live in a day an age where we can safely eliminate all of the information on our missing smartphones via a website, surely it’s time to build a little more peace-of-mind into Windows 8’s cloud security.
We touched on it in the intro, but we’ll etch it in stone in our final point: Windows 8 presents no compelling reason for a user to upgrade, period. If it seems as though we spent a lot of time critiquing the look and feel of Windows’ new interface, and for good reason: At the end of a day of Windows 8, that’s all you’re left with. Minus a few fun features here and there (Storage Space, File History, Shutdown Hibernation, et cetera), there’s little more than window dressing to inspire users to flock to their local Microsoft stores upon Window 8’s final release. Windows 8 is, for lack of a better word, a new makeup kit for Windows 7.
Touchscreen systems aside – you’re really going to want Windows 8, given that Metro was made for you – the quote unquote improvements built into Windows 8’s Metro apps definitely appear pretty. And there’s no question that the future, full-screen Metro treatment of third-party apps like Facebook, or Twitter, or Angry Birds will surely be something to see. But we don’t think that cosmetic trumps functionality in every occurrence: A huge-font Twitter app with one user profile per screen swipe pales in comparison to what you get from the best Twitter apps already available on Windows 7 today, for example.
In other words, Windows 8 is going to give a lot of pretty people plenty of new methods for interacting with their information in a prettier way. It’s also going to confuse the bejesus out of them if they’ve used Windows at any point over the last, say, ten years, and we don’t think that Microsoft’s latest OS is going to deliver best overall user experience. Prettier, yes. Better, no.
Coming tomorrow: 8 Must-Have Apps for Your New Windows 8 Installation!
For more from David, former Maximum PC editor and Windows enthusiast, follow him onFacebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).
Comments are closed on this article
sladeofdark
March 07, 2012 at 8:15pm
what is it with the WORDY writers on this site. Someone needs to read over these articles and tell these kids to stop trying to be clever.
Mithril PC
March 07, 2012 at 7:55pm
Any word on DirectX 12?
I wouldn't be surprised if M$ released DirectX 12 exclusively on Windows 8 just like they did with Vista and dx10.I'm sick and tired of M$ and their goat/consumer antics.
Biceps
March 07, 2012 at 8:16pm
Lol, no. Windows 8 is only going to have advertisements for DirectX12, you will have to purchase the upcoming expansion pack and then give it access to your facebook account to actually use DX12. ;)
ozium101
March 07, 2012 at 7:31pm
I hope I'm not stepping on my own johnson here, since I have been following MPC since boot, but have never posted. But this article along with my 5-day experience with Windows 8 kind of screamed at me on my own issues. I installed Thursday evening and it was so bad that I reimaged my laptop yesterday.
Granted, I joined my install to a domain so I could test a few of our apps. I am really hoping Windows 8 Professional will give some (much) better options more like Windows 7 for configurations.
For several of the Metro apps to run, UAC must be turned on. UAC is the first thing we turn off on all new PCs in our office. That may be "bad" but it's what we do. So with UAC now turned on (at the lowest setting), there are three of our main apps that install in such a way that whenever the app is started, I get the "are you sure you want to run this?" box. No can do - our users would give us more hell than we'd know what to do with.
Out of the "box", press delete on a file or icon and it's just gone. There is no confirmation. I have stupid users (they stay that way no matter how much training). This will get old quick. We don't use images for our new machines because we can't standardize, so we configure each as they come in. We aren't a large company, but the extra step of going into the Recycle Bin properties to turn on this "feature" is just extra work for us.
I love my Start Menu and being able to customize it. I setup all of our PCs for Computer and Control Panel to expand. It's much quicker to get to. Now there are too many steps just to get to the CP.
And come on, 6 clicks to shutdown or restart? Two clicks in Win 7 for shutdown, 3 for restart.
I also agree that the Metro UI is yugly - and cumbersome, especially that one has to right-click just to get to All Apps, so again, 3 clicks just to get to a list of all apps instead of one. And then listing every single icon for each app instead of them being in expandable folders makes the interface almost unbearable. No, I take that back - it IS unbearable.
Lastly, and this most likely (I hope) is due to not having a driver specifically written for 8, every time I opened the lid on my laptop and got logged in, I had to restart the machine just for wireless to fully reconnect. Every time I got back in, I got "limited" connection with no Internet. This is on two different routers at home and 3 WAPs at work as well as a wireless hotspot at my coffee shot and the hotspot from my Razr.
I told my boss that if we have to, we will buy many, many extra copies of Windows 7 in 18 months just to get through to the next version, just to be safe from when the time comes that MS decides OEMs can't sell new machines with 7.
/rant over
Thanks for listening.
majorsuave
March 07, 2012 at 7:16pm
I doubt that Microsoft will sell an OS that only uses the Metro UI. If they do, people will skip the upgrade
misterz100
March 07, 2012 at 7:02pm
Looking at the history it always seems to go from a shitty OS to an awesome OS...maybe this is some messed up marketing scheme for when they have windows 9 it will be god and people will "say 8 was shit, 9 is what you want" just like(98 over 95?) XP over ME or 7 over vista...beginning to see a pattern here... if it continues we can safely say that windows 10 will also blow and 11 will rock XD
Keith E. Whisman
March 08, 2012 at 4:13pm
I'm sure they aren't following this pattern as a marketing scheme because there would be a lot of pissed off investors and board members. It's more likely they are trying to put in a lot of changes and features that they later learn people hate just to fix the problems with the next version of Windows. Like Vista sucked because it was bloated and 7 Kicks ass because it's not bloated, but 8 removes too many features and Windows 9 will probably restore or replace the missing Windows 8 features.
Keith E. Whisman
March 07, 2012 at 5:04pm
After trying out Windows 8 for a few days I must say that on my laptop or home desktop computer Windows 8 just plain sucks ass. I ended up going back to Windows 7 Ultimate. My next purchase will be a touch screen all in one computer and I would love to have Win8 on that. Also I would love to have a tablet with Win8 on it. But as for my desktop machine, I just can't easily do what comes super easy in all other versions of Windows except for perhaps versions that came before Windows 95.
Mithril PC
March 07, 2012 at 4:48pm
The one, and only one, thing I like about metro is the easier accessibility of administrative tools. You can right click the bottom left corner, or in the actual metro interface go as an adminstrator to
bottom right corner > settings > settings > slide the show administrative tools
Bottom right corner as part of a file path seems sacrilegious to me.
Then move them to the first screen and you can see them when you start up.
No more having to tell my relatives... ok hit windows key + r... then type msconfig... MS What now?
The other thing that makes me laugh is that Windows 8 is labeled as 6.2.8250 in the command prompt... They didn't raise the 6 to 7 as has been the tradition in past NT release. They only raised the former 6.1 (win7) to 6.2! Honestly they could pull an Apple and just charge $4.99 for the freaggin metro ui!
biggiebob12345
March 08, 2012 at 2:42pm
Because having to do 30 clicks to change something other than your wallpaper is WAY better than Win+R and one word.
igoka
March 07, 2012 at 4:20pm
Here is an article how to disable metro and get start button back
http://www.pcstats.com/NewsView.cfm?NewsID=97794
livebriand
March 17, 2012 at 7:15pm
Fyi, the RPEnabled registry hack from the Developer preview does NOT work on the consumer preview. I tried it.
guntlager
March 07, 2012 at 4:02pm
The one thing that Microsoft cannot avoid is the fact that most of the users that they are chasing do not have to use a Microsoft product. That is especially true for tablet buyers.
If Metro's crappy reputation gets around less copies will be sold, hence another Windows ME or Vista. After following the iPad event this morning I wonder if the Windows 8 Team isn't secretly working for Apple!
As it stands now I see very few reasons to upgrade either my laptop or desktop to Windows 8 and I see a whole bunch of reasons not to.
imagonex
March 07, 2012 at 3:49pm
My biggest pet peeve: "Bring on the Advertisers". Nothing wrong with selling one's ware. However, what can be an issue is shoving or forcing a product down the consumer's throat and trapping them into an enclosed ecosystem. Privacy might also be something to worry about. Datamining now is a lot more sophisticated. Consumers should be a lot more vigilant and aware of this. Hopefully, they offer the consumer a clear and easy option to shut-off some aspects of the software.
Penterax
March 07, 2012 at 3:48pm
You keep using the word "prettier" in some relation to Metro I must not understand, because Metro is just yugly to me (Yugly - you'-glee, as in "so ugly it's beyond ugly, it's yugly").
I still fail to understand what most "apps" do that a bookmark in a browser can't do, or certainly what an icon on your desktop can do. Putting that little button in a square - okay, I get that, for tiny screens or just for those that like squares or rectangles and making icons look like little buttons you can push - but it does absolutely nothing for me. There's not a reason in the world I couldn't just touch my icon instead of a big, ugly, square, if the OS were made that way.
The looks of Win 8 Metro bring back a statement I read in an article some time back, made by a system security pro (I'm sorry I can't remember her name at the moment). Basically, she said she used a Mac over a PC because, even though the PC was inherently more secure, PCs were made for people that were "esthetically challenged". In other words, she couldn't bring herself to use a PC because she thought Windows PCs were too ugly.
Now, there have been plenty of ugly Apple computers, there are very nice looking boxes and displays for the PC, and Vista and Win 7 brought a much nicer looking user interface to Windows, so I didn't agree with her, even though I knew what she meant (Vista was out at the time, so her opinion was "dated"). Metro, on the other hand, puts me firmly in agreement with her, and I have to wonder if they fired everyone with any sense of artistry at Microsoft before they started working on Metro.
ariesking
March 07, 2012 at 7:52pm
Amen to all that. I can understand the whole square tiles IF you actually make them "live" and fill them all with information regarding the app. But a big square with a tiny icon or words in it?? On top of that, talk about some ugly, crude icons (ie...the maps icon)! And wtf is that ugly ass fish they put on the desktop...I mean, come on! I can't for the life of me understand why this company has such a hard time with aesthetics. I mean some of this stuff is just design 101....I can go on and on...smh.
HeroOfCanton
March 07, 2012 at 5:36pm
Agree 1000%, and I LOVE Metro on my Zune HD. This looks like a clown threw up on the screen.
DoctorX
March 07, 2012 at 3:44pm
Thank you MaxPC! Thjs spells out exactly the issue I have with Win8. Good job for being objective about it.
SkinnyZeroOne
March 07, 2012 at 3:42pm
Could not have said it better gents ...
After installing it on a virtual machine like 3 hours after the download became available - I installed it on its own SSD the following day.(Couldn't get the resolution right on Virtual Box -- the Display adapter would not install correctly)
I found the desktop - automated the password thing all on my own 'cause it works the same as in W7 ---- & fixed the resolution issue. All the hardware is good with the exception that I cannot enable SLI (2xGTX460s - & the latest nVidia 295.73s).
I screw around with it once or twice a day now but my gut feeling is 'WTF ??' --- & as you guys said - 'Where the heck am I?'
Dunno - I just dunno what the hell Redmond is thinking with this Metro interface on a desktop PC?
T0mmy1977
March 08, 2012 at 7:44am
Had the same issue. I just ended up doing the dual boot, and it it worked very well!
anagramsolver
March 07, 2012 at 3:34pm
I learned well enough from the Windows ME and Windows Vista debacle. It is a given now that every other MS OS will suck.
I will be skipping every other MS OS that is released. I have Windows 7 now and will not upgrade until whatever comes out after Windows 8 is available.
sirnotapearing
March 07, 2012 at 3:30pm
hopefully the will get the os to the point where multitasking is possible.
AnUnknownSource
March 07, 2012 at 3:16pm
"Closing apps without always having to use our keyboard (Metro)."
Not sure if it's documented anywhere, but if you hover over the top middle of the app near the edge of the screen, and the cursor turns to a hand, you can drag it to the bottom right corner of the screen and the app closes...
Other than that, I agree with the hates... maybe articles like this will spur some last minute changes.
TheMurph
March 07, 2012 at 3:32pm
A point that I mention early on in the article. To clarify, I was more speaking to the lack of a big ol' "close" button in Metro. Or, you know, that box-like thing with the x in it. Mmm.
tony487
March 16, 2012 at 11:50am
You mean the apps don't have the x- button? No little red x to close my app??
STUPID!
michaelh
March 07, 2012 at 2:48pm
It's touched upon in the Cloud & Services parts, but the way an account is set up is horrible. Either you've got a local login that's bound to the machine and doesn't allow integration with MS services (a good portion of the reason someone might upgrade to Windows 8) or you're stuck using a Windows ID. In my case, I used my Hotmail address. I changed the password for my Windows login (supposedly more secure, but also because my more secure e-mail password was a pain to use for the W8CP testing). It changed my hotmail password as well. Coincidentally, for the first time I experienced a spam e-mail sent out to everyone on my contact list.
If using Windows 8, I'll plan on making a local account. Whether it's my less secure 8-letter password to blame or a fault of the OS, it's not something I want to think about during day-to-day computer use.
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