Charge of the Metro brigade: Did Microsoft execs plan to take a hit?

The Register ^ | 15 March 2012 | Andrew Orlowski

[Erik Latranyi]

I switch to the "desktop" view quite easily.

All these posters and tech 'journalists' do not know how without the START button, so they are lost and think it is gone.

Nice research....or is it disinformation?

[JerseyHighlander]

I installed win8 CP in a VirtualBox image, once I got rid of Metro UI, it really is a minor evolution from Win7, I see very few theoretical needs for Corporate environment licensees to upgrade any time soon.

My more satirical side says that any new employee who requires win8 Metro UI and touchscreen to properly perform their job function should be immediately fired and replaced by a competent human being.

I used to sell touchscreen kiosks for retail/medical/kiosk industry niche, I don’t see any benefit to Metro UI for those applications. Many of the existing (Windows universe) touchscreen suites will be ported, but they almost all use custom UI overlays or are integrated into a WinNT compatible interfaces already.

My first reaction to Metro UI was a memory of how Office Suite 2000 introduced simpler slide transitions for PowerPoint and Microsoft used that as a selling point for the entire suite. For the 80%+ of Office users who never or rarely used PP, it had added no benefit.

[catnipman]

I’m an industrial-level PC user. Have been for decades. Among other things, I write Windows optimization tools for my PC support business. And I use dozens of free 3rd party tools, and I need 1-2 click access to them constantly. So I installed W8 Consumer Preview on VirtualBox in order to get a jump on porting my applications to W8. Metro UI is a total nightmare for anything but a tablet device. Impossible to get anything done. And you can’t bypass it. Best you can do is take the extra step to go to the normal desktop. But even here, no Start button. Thus it is totally impossible to do anything at all on Windows 8 for an enterprise user! And the real irony? W8 Metro UI is a mediocre tablet interface that will run only on tablets that have 2-3 gigbytes of RAM and at least 20 gig hard drive! Anybody know about any tablets like that?

My advice? Be prepared to buy some 1 year LEAP PUTS on Microsoft if they actually release this piece of crap into the marketplace like it is now. Enterprise will shun it and mom and pop buyers at Best Buy will be so befuddled by what they see when they open up their shiny new W8 PC when they get home, they’ll probably turn right back around and ask for a refund. While you’re at it, you could short Dell, Intel, HP, and a whole bunch of others dependent upon W8. I’m serious. What you have shaping up here is the next New Coke or Edsel. Actually, I predict much worse. W8 is gonna make Vista look like one of the all-time brilliant marketing strategies! (BTW, Volt doesn’t count as a comparison because it’s not a free-market product from a free-market company.)

(BTW, I was finally able to get some work done on W8 when I installed ViStart, a free third party “Start” menu emulator. It’s not as good as “Classic Start Menu”, which I routinely use on Vista and W7, but CSM isn’t ready yet for W8, and ViStart is better than no Start at all.)

(Also, if you ever manage to find out how to get into Safe Mode (since F8 no longer works in W8) you’ll find you enter right into the traditional desktop, bypassing Metro UI. I guess MS figures if you have to go to Safe Mode, you can be screwing around with a Fisher-Price interface for 3-year olds. Still no Start menu though.)

(Another dirty little secret is MS won’t allow any apps to be installed on Metro unless you obtain a certificate from them! And supposedly Metro apps can only be written in C++!)

[JerseyHighlander]

Note on my above post, I am using the win8 CP on a non-touchscreen desktop.

Rainmeter is already building a custom UI to replace Metro.

winServer2008r2 can use Aero.
Just copy the Aero files over from a Win7Pro or higher add a few lines in registry and regserver the files.

I’ve never used this but I did install it twice.
Aero themes:
http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/win2008r2/themes
Aero cursors:
http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/win2008r2/aero-cursors
Vista/7 sidebar:
http://www.win2008r2workstation.com/win2008r2/sidebar

[for-q-clinton]

I hear ya, but the new generation of computer users want a touch interface. CxOs are bring their iPad into work and demanding the IT guys figure out how to support it on their network.

Touch is here to stay for a long time, so get used to it or at least act like you understand it if you work in the IT field.

[Erik Latranyi]

My more satirical side says that any new employee who requires win8 Metro UI and touchscreen to properly perform their job function should be immediately fired and replaced by a competent human being.

Further proof of why IT should have ZERO input on the rest of the operation.

These are the bozos who created fiefdoms in many corporations, strangling any freedom and limiting everything you can possibly do because they trust NOBODY with technology except themselves.

But at least your post was satire.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"..But the cost/benefit advantage just isn't there in Windows 8. Microsoft doesn't have the power to move its market in the way Apple can – the market would prefer to shun the upgrade, as it did with Vista..."

Microsoft has a built in market share that is rotting their brains.

[Psycho_Bunny]

“These are the bozos who created fiefdoms in many corporations, strangling any freedom and limiting everything you can possibly do because they trust NOBODY with technology except themselves.”

Cool...you work at a building where the maintenance department will let any employee go down to the basement and dink around with the HVAC system? If your business has a pool are you allowed to mess with the chlorine levels? Can you want into accounting and sort the paperwork anyway you feel like a day before an audit? Do you have any idea how ignorant you sound?

[Vermont Lt]

I only use windows two....one on the left wall, and the other in front of my desk.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Lol....what? Who admins on the server?

[for-q-clinton]

Huh? I was suggesting that Microsoft does in fact release different interfaces based on need.

But I do know some admins TS.

[dangerdoc]

I just put up a review for a $99 dollar tablet. The author seemed to think that it was this kind of hardware that is the future for business.

[ADemocratNoMore]

> The Windows 8 Experience: “Wait...what? Why did you do that? Why would someone even think to do that? What the hell is going on?”

Just like going from XP to 7. No more!

[Erik Latranyi]

Can you want into accounting and sort the paperwork anyway you feel like a day before an audit? Do you have any idea how ignorant you sound?

I know IT departments who chose the accounting software because accountants could not be trusted to choose what would work best for them.

I know IT departments who refused to allow a tie-in between production controls and the servers, forcing manual data collection to continue because they feared unfamiliar connections.

I know IT departments who controlled the creation of proprietary sales software (CRM) without allowing the sales department to provide any input.

I know IT departments who refuse to upgrade hardware so everyone ran on the same systems, even if it was outdated.

You are naive if you do not recognize how some IT departments used their knowledge to buffalo companies into making the IT job easier and everyone else's job more difficult.

IT is like accounting, they are mostly a service group inside a company with an advisory function ---- not a controlling function.

That is starting to change today as people become more tech-saavy.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Note: You can switch back to the “old” desktop in Win8 if you can’t handle Metro.

---

This seems to be a fairly fundamental and important point - thanks for pointing this out. So it’s not really the end of the world as we know it LOL.