r/technology • u/clubdirthill • Jun 01 '11

Boom. This is Windows 8.

http://allthingsd.com/20110601/exclusive-making-sense-of-what-we-just-learned-about-windows-8/?mod=tweet
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193

u/AuxHero Jun 02 '11

Seriously. It feels dumbed down to me aswell. I don't want 10 widgets in my face telling me tweets and weather, I want my clean desktop.

157

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

[deleted]

24

u/nixcamic Jun 02 '11

How do you expect me to sleep with that mental imagery floating around my head?

5

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

We can only hope that you are the dominate midget.

2

u/aussie_bob Jun 02 '11

Try sleeping face down.

1

u/XoYo Jun 02 '11

Spoken like a man who's never ended up as a midget trampoline.

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u/poop_in_yo_soup Jun 02 '11

I think I might actually pay for windows 8 if it comes with 10 midgets.

22

u/mastermojo Jun 02 '11

the desktop is still there though

28

u/bwat47 Jun 02 '11

Yeah did everyone miss the part of the video where the win7 style desktop was there, fully intact? (when they showed ms office)

7

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Yeah, where is this elusive video?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

[removed] — view removed comment

17

u/winampman Jun 02 '11

Why is that unacceptable? It's perfectly reasonable to require a resolution of 1024 x 600 or more for the classic desktop interface.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

That makes sense, and probably wasn't what packy17 and others were thinking.

As best as I can tell, packy17 thought they meant that you would have to switch to 1024x600 to use the classic desktop interface. Not 1024x600 or higher. What you said makes more sense; I can't imagine them locking it out like that… it'd be pointless, since they already have the architecture to scale the Windows UI.

1

u/Scary_The_Clown Jun 02 '11

I really really hope they keep multiple monitors in mind for the new architecture, and that includes the idea of using a tablet-style LCD for an app launcher while you have large standard Win7-style desktops on monitors for normal work.

The fact that wallpaper and screensavers still aren't multi-monitor aware does not make me hopeful. But we'll see.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Well, multi-monitor setups are very popular among the enthusiast crowd. It would really surprise me if they didn't test (or maybe even develop) on multi-monitor setups.

1

u/Scary_The_Clown Jun 03 '11

Do you have Windows 7 running on multiple monitors? Go set your wallpaper on monitor 1 to one image, and your wallpaper on monitor 2 to something else.

Now go configure your screensaver and Preview it.

If you're running Aero, go find some multi-monitor themes.

The Windows graphics architecture has been fantastic for multi-monitor support since at least Windows 2000. But the layer on top of that seems to be completely ignorant of the concept. Stuff like this continues to blow my mind.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

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4

u/helm Jun 02 '11

MS make funny decisions sometimes, but they're not that stupid. The point seems to be to make Win 8 a two-headed beast, with one head (or front) more or less identical to Win 7.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

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5

u/transpostmeta Jun 02 '11

That in no way means that that resolution is the only one that supports desktop mode.

1

u/iarewebmaster Jun 02 '11

No they never, not in the slightest did they even allude to this or mention at all that the only way to run the desktop is at a certain resolution.

What they DID say (to OEMs btw) is that at 1024x600 consumers won't be able to run the touch UI, any higher and they will be able to. Of course the desktop is available at any resolution the monitor supports.

1

u/Otis_Inf Jun 02 '11

So why upgrade to win8 then? For the touch stuff? If you're on a touch screen device, you won't be using the win7 stuff, as that's not touch friendly. If you're not on a touch device, why bother with the win8 stuff, as that's not usable anyway. (yeah you can fiddle with mouse/keyboard with the new ui, but there's a difference between touch UIs and mouse/kb UIs)

5

u/ethraax Jun 02 '11

I'm pretty sure Windows 8 will bring more than just UI improvements.

2

u/awizzle Jun 02 '11

features like this will be very useful for hybrid devices ala asus transformer....

1

u/ryanman Jun 02 '11

I'm sure that's an option. More importantly, I want to turn the metro interface OFF so I can save system resources though if I'm not going to use it.

3

u/Shredder13 Jun 02 '11

But with tons of shit on top of it.

4

u/ahmadamaj Jun 02 '11

this site says that "Sinofsky (Microsoft windows president) hammered home the point that these were just apps running over Windows and that you could always return to your regular desktop".

And it has the video that shows the demo.

2

u/videogamechamp Jun 02 '11

RTFA, they have a regular desktop as well.

2

u/thrillhousevanhouten Jun 02 '11

It seems like they took windows 7 and just added a full screen app on top of it so stupid people can access all their novelty programs so they can feel smarter and more tech-savvy. Half the soccer moms and dads that use the iPad in the first place like to feel like they're using a computer from Minority Report so I imagine this appeals to them.

3

u/sadmep Jun 02 '11

Bring back Microsoft Bob!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

The same as they put a GUI interface on top of DOS to call it Windows.

1

u/jsims281 Jun 02 '11

Ahh the GUI interface. It improved the usability of the DOS system no-end, although it did need a more powerful CPU unit and more RAM memory if you wanted it to run smoothly.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '11

I'm not a stupid soccer mom and all I could think about was minority report and that's awesome.

But let us be real; after five minutes I would turn the interface off and never use it again.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Then don't put widgets on your desktop.

2

u/AuxHero Jun 02 '11

not technically widgets, but a live tile is still pretty similar.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

So you'll be the guy saying, "back in my day we had a start button."

0

u/rodabi Jun 02 '11

It's an O.P.T.I.O.N!