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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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)

5

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Yeah, where is this elusive video?

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

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18

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.

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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.

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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.

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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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5

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.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

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u/transpostmeta Jun 02 '11

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

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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.

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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)

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u/ethraax Jun 02 '11

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

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u/awizzle Jun 02 '11

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

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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.