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[ThatObviousUser]

Multiple actions? OMG finally.

 

[Marty Chinn]

I dunno, but this looks more confusing than making it easier....

 

[clav]

Improving our file management basics: copy, move, rename, and delete

WOW

Pause file transfers.

More information for transfers.

Consolidated windows.

I like.

Resolution dialog still looks like a work in progress.

 

[jambo]

Google Docs is better than MS Office. Deal with it.

Improving our file management basics: copy, move, rename, and delete

That's going to be amazing, finally!

EDIT: Some of the stuff they're putting in is so basic, but so brilliant!

I had to move about 430 GB of mp3s recently and it was such a pain when there would be conflicts!

 

[kehs]

I dunno, but this looks more confusing than making it easier....

Crazy talk, this is great for oganizing large duplicate dumping wells.

However, Microsoft is adding features that should have been in W7. Pausing file transfers...really? Why am I worried about pausing transfers that happen in three seconds over usb3 or thunderbolt since the only computers that'll be using W8 are machines from late 2012, a time when nobody is even transferring files anymore. GG, Mike Rowe.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Already had that GIF used on me.

 

[jambo]

Already had that GIF used on me.

How about

=P

 

[ThatObviousUser]

 

[Deleted member 1235]

I won't be building my next desktop until USB 3.0 is fully embraced. My current desktop built in 2007 works fine still.

Isn't Intel pushing for Thunderbolt?

everybody should be pushing thunderbolt. fucking look at this amazing technology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kidmWiqKzqY

it's amazing. Until I see a similar youtube vid of USB 3 doing this then usb 3 sucks. Also, USB connectors. someone should be shot for that shit.

 

[HarryDemeanor]

I like the file management changes. Also I hope they support Thunderbolt as well.

 

[eastmen]

everybody should be pushing thunderbolt. fucking look at this amazing technology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kidmWiqKzqY

it's amazing. Until I see a similar youtube vid of USB 3 doing this then usb 3 sucks. Also, USB connectors. someone should be shot for that shit.

There are two verisons of light peak. The real one which uses fiber optic cables and then what they put on apple products which is copper its 10Gbit while USB3 is 5Gbit

USB3 is also cheaper to implement and thunderbolt takes up a pci-e lane on your system i believe it requires a 4x lane .

 

[Marty Chinn]

Crazy talk, this is great for oganizing large duplicate dumping wells.

However, Microsoft is adding features that should have been in W7. Pausing file transfers...really? Why am I worried about pausing transfers that happen in three seconds over usb3 or thunderbolt since the only computers that'll be using W8 are machines from late 2012, a time when nobody is even transferring files anymore. GG, Mike Rowe.

It's very cluttered from a UI design perspective. It doesn't give you a good way to set focus and work from there which is poor design. Plus that looks great for three items, but what happens when you get like 50?

 

[XMonkey]

There are two verisons of light peak. The real one which uses fiber optic cables and then what they put on apple products which is copper its 10Gbit while USB3 is 5Gbit

USB3 is also cheaper to implement and thunderbolt takes up a pci-e lane on your system i believe it requires a 4x lane .

Small note.. Thunderbolt is 10Gbps in both directions at the same time, so it's really more like 20Gbps. Quite a bit faster than USB3.

 

[eastmen]

Small note.. Thunderbolt is 10Gbps in both directions at the same time, so it's really more like 20Gbps. Quite a bit faster than USB3.

Still giving up a pci-e 4x slot and adding more cost than usb3 .


If i really wanted to I can just use multiple usb 3 devices and transfer faster.


We will see how it shakes down as more devices come out supporitng both of these standards .

 

[jagowar]

The most interesting point of the new video is the new start button that was shown at the beginning of that video.... kinda makes it look like metro will make an appearance in the "base" ui.

http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-reveals-the-new-windows-8-start-button/

If they keep that aero stuff on top I think it will be a big fail from a unifying the ui perspective.... that start bar really clashes with the aero explorer window above.

We will see how it shakes down as more devices come out supporitng both of these standards .

I think the cost factor is going to play a big role even if its not as fast....

 

[brotkasten]

The most interesting point of the new video is the new start button that was shown at the beginning of that video.... kinda makes it look like metro will make an appearance in the "base" ui.

http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-reveals-the-new-windows-8-start-button/

If they keep that aero stuff on top I think it will be a big fail from a unifying the ui perspective.... that start bar really clashes with the aero explorer window above.



I think the cost factor is going to play a big role even if its not as fast....

Here's a better analysis.

The most obvious of which, as WinRumors has also noted, is the solid-shaded Windows flag in place of the Start button. Some suggests this button will launch the new tile-based Start experience which is reasonable considering the similarities to the Start button within the touch experience.

On closer inspection, the taskbar itself seems to blend completely to the background without obvious borders or shading.

Although the video resolution could be playing tricks, it’s practical the new taskbar simply floats on top of the wallpaper with only a button surrounding active applications for a more minimalistic look.

Next, the Window chrome seems to have been reduced to just a drop shadow.

The glass edge encompassing the application seems to have been remove entirely, leaving what seems to be a drop shadow underneath the rectangular client area. I really hope this turns out to be the case since the chrome-less aesthetics on Mac OS X is much more appealing for modern applications.

Last but not least, Windows Explorer also displays a “syncing” status in the status bar. The icon and terminology “Always available” suggests this is an extension of the “Offline files” feature that already exists in Windows 7 and earlier, however it’s prominence in the status bar confirms that syncing will be a much more common task in Windows 8.

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20110824/dissecting-the-windows-8-file-management-video/

 

[giga]

If i really wanted to I can just use multiple usb 3 devices and transfer faster.

Doesn't make sense. You can't use multiple usb ports for one device to make it go faster. Additionally, the 5Gbps bandwidth is shared between all ports.

 

[clav]

Looks like there is somewhat of an answer from a guy who works at MS in the comments section regarding Thunderbolt:

Dennis Flanagan - MSFT 24 Aug 2011 7:54 AM #
@Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt offers some attractive advantages such as speeds twice the theoretical max of USB3 and the ability to multiplex PCI-e with DisplayPort on a single connector. However, these advantages require more complex and costly controller chips in the PC and and in the device, so most consumer devices will use USB3 instead. Thunderbolt also consumes more steady-state power than USB3 ports when nothing is plugged in, so it's not the best choice for mobile devices/laptops. Finally, Thunderbolt devices can directly access system memory through DMA without the knowledge of the operating system. If every Windows machine automatically connects to any Thunderbolt device this constitutes a security exploit surface. For these reasons we think Thunderbolt is likely to be confined to higher-end peripherals and it's better for people who know what they're doing to install custom software to enable their Thunderbolt devices.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/22/building-robust-usb-3-0-support.aspx

Although an unofficial response, that's what I thought Microsoft would respond to Thunderbolt since it's proprietary.

 

[clav]

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/...windows-8-file-name-collision-experience.aspx

Designing the Windows 8 file name collision experience
Steven Sinofsky 26 Aug 2011 11:20 AM

Thank you so much for all the comments about our work to improve file management basics. We’ve been overwhelmed by the dialog—there’s a huge amount of excitement for the changes we’re making and a ton of energy around this topic. That’s what makes working on Windows 8 so much fun. While there were comments and suggestions around many parts of what we talked about, by far the most back and forth (expressing all sides of the issue for sure) came from the discussion of the file name collision dialog (one dialog!). We thought it would be great to dig up the design archives from the development cycle and show you some of what we considered and how we got to where we are. Down the road we will of course circle back and talk about any changes we might make, but we thought spending some energy looking at our design path would be a useful effort. This post was authored by a set of folks who worked on the feature (they all worked on other parts of Windows 8 as well)-- Ben Truelove (designer), Matt Duignan (UX researcher), Jon Class and Ilana Smith (program managers) . --Steven

Our previous post about the new copy experience in Windows 8 generated a lot of questions and comments about the new “Choose Files” dialog for resolving file name collisions. Based on the level of interest, we thought it would be fun to share some of the design iterations and our usability testing that led us to this design.

• In the implemented design, there are two levels of control when acting on file name collisions (or “conflicts”).
  
• The primary experience is a simplified, one-click, bulk management of all conflicts, offering “Replace all” or “Skip all.” We call this the “Simple Conflict Resolution dialog.”
  There is also an option to enter the secondary experience which offers more information and more fine-grained control. This is the “Detailed Conflict Resolution dialog.”

Windows 7 and before
Resolving file name collisions is an inherently tricky task, as it involves making a meaningful choice between two very similar things.

Here’s how we did this back in Windows 3.1:

We’d certainly made some progress by the time we got to this in Windows 7:

In Windows 7, there’s a lot of information to aid the choice, and more options about what action to take. For Windows 8, we thought we could improve this even further, so it’s easier for you to make the right decisions more efficiently, and get your file transfer tasks completed faster. As we mentioned, the feedback and support calls on the existing dialog were clear—folks were having a hard time finding the information needed to make an informed choice in a fairly complex dialog. Even with the amount of work we do, sometimes it takes quite a while to surface something that isn’t optimal. Keep in mind millions of people used pre-release Windows 7 and this was not a big topic of discussion on our forums (not to say that it didn’t come up, but it was not a broadly raised topic).

Improving on the Windows 7 experience
First, we looked at ways to keep the experience basically the same, but to incrementally improve it by optimizing for the key information that is necessary for the decision.

These designs introduced some concepts that really stuck around:

• Getting rid of unnecessary labels (like “Date modified:”) and obvious explanatory text enabled us to present the important details at a glance.
• Metadata adjectives were emphasized. Rather than requiring users to compare values like file size, using words like “Larger” gave users the right summary.
• Smart defaults were pre-selected, reducing the work for users.

Fast and fluid: better bulk management of conflicts
In Windows 8, we want you to be able to get stuff done more quickly and efficiently—"fast and fluid" are key design words around Windows 8 for all of our designs (for touch, mouse/keyboard or both together). The next major design iteration looked at ways that we could follow on from the cohesive copy progress experience, bring queued-up conflicts together into a single dialog, and provide you with the ability to manage them in a more streamlined way.

The idea of optimizing for the “Replace all” or “Skip all” choice was introduced. Most of the time, you know exactly what you’re copying and why it is conflicting, and you can make a simple choice about what action to take.

For cases where you need more information or finer-grained control, we decided to disclose information in “tiers” of greater detail.

We started with two tiers:

Then we tried three-tiers:

And ended up back at one-tier:

This design offers many positive attributes. It provides a lot of information. Since clicking on the headers selects everything in a column, it provides real power for managing conflicts. But it was a very complex piece of UI to be presenting as the initial experience.

Instead, we combined the best of these options into the following:

Simple and detailed conflict resolution
It was clear that this design was heading toward a balanced combination of simplicity and power that would suit user patterns.

Unfortunately, we identified a real challenge with this design: when you select “Let me pick,” the result is confusing and overly complex because the simpler and advanced options are both available. This led us to a design where the “Simple Conflict Resolution dialog” and the “Detailed Conflict Resolution dialog” were discrete experiences.

With this decision, our basic structure was in place.

Refinements
In preparation for testing with users, we iterated on the design.

• We cleared up the confusion caused by a single thumbnail.
• We made the source and destination (and their columns) more apparent.
• Our User Assistance team (the experts in authoring text we use in the product, assistance, and the web) helped us out with better text.

It’s interesting to see the similarities between the Simple Conflict Resolution dialog and some of the earliest designs for dealing with single file conflicts. It’s also interesting how similar they both are to the final design for the dialog.

First round of usability research
In our usability tests our researchers find a diverse set of subjects who don’t work at Microsoft and represent a range of different skill levels and experiences. We show them the software and ask them to complete a set of tasks. By listening as they describe their thought process, using eye-tracking to watch how they see the UI and measuring successful task completion, we gain valuable insights into what works (or not) about a design.

It is super important to understand that usability tests are one tool we use. Anyone who has ever used this tool knows that you have to be both an expert in the domain and also an expert at designing tests themselves as observer bias and test construction can easily lead you to a false sense of security or efforts to optimize an inherently flawed solution. To help us in that regard, our tests are designed by objective researchers who understand the limits of what can be tested and also make sure that the conclusions drawn from the test match what the test was meant to measure. Ultimately, design choices require the use of many different inputs both qualitative and quantitative as well as experience and intuition.

We knew that we’d learn a lot in our first round of usability tests and make many changes, so we used the RITE method as our protocol. Most usability studies test the same UI with all users, but with RITE, we make changes continuously between participants, based on what we learn. (We were testing with PowerPoint slides at this point, so change was cheap.)

We didn’t end up needing to make many changes to the Simple Conflict Resolution dialog as it tested well, but we tested lots of different things for the Detailed Conflict Resolution dialog:

Our key lessons:

• Check boxes are necessary. As much as we preferred the cleaner no-checkbox look, it simply didn’t test well. Users didn’t know what to do when presented with the UI. Check boxes were much more effective in providing appropriate cues for selection. We made sure to retain a large click-target area, so users can click on the check box, thumbnail, or the text to select a file.
  
  
  
  
  
• Mixing the adjectives (e.g. “newer,” “larger”) and the metadata was confusing. Users interpreted them as two different concepts. The adjectives were particularly problematic – people thought they were titles, or described the file location (for example, “older” was interpreted to mean the files in the destination because they were present prior to the copy.)
  
• Columns needed to be more distinct. At first glance, it looked like the Tiles view in Explorer, rather than a table.

More refinement
There was no simple solution to the adjective and column issues, so that led to more design explorations:

We really struggled with how best to define the hierarchy and importance of source/destination versus conflict rows. We tried vertical lines, which separated the source and destination too much. We ultimately landed on horizontal lines, combined with the file name as a header, to give the most prominence to the distinction between conflicts. The check boxes aided in distinguishing a choice between source and destination without interfering with this distinction.

Some of our earliest ideas were discarded at this point in the process:

• No default choices. With conflicts scrolling off the page, defaults posed too much of a risk of data loss. No selection in a row results in the copy of that file being skipped, so nothing is lost.
• No adjectives. We liked “Newer” and “Larger,” but they added confusion and users valued the concrete data.
• Instead, to help users make the choice, we chose a more subtle suggestion – the newer and larger metadata values are bold in the UI. This has proven to be surprisingly effective, without introducing new concepts or adding clutter.

More usability research
In our next round of usability tests, we were heading toward the final design, and tested fewer alternatives:

The third option was the clear winner. The two-column view is the most efficient use of space and moves the check boxes close to the question. Date and time need to be on the same line because these are primarily a single value.

The Detailed Conflict Resolution dialog also offers the following features to help when even more information is required to make the decision:

• Double-clicking the thumbnail opens the file.
• Right-clicking the thumbnail opens the standard context menu.
• The blue Source and Destination text are clickable, and open those locations in Explorer.
• Hovering on the thumbnail or link shows a tooltip with the full file path.

Continuing to iterate
We’ve continued to conduct more studies and make minor changes since the initial research, but the core design has remained basically the same. It has been very encouraging to witness the ease with which users complete usability tasks. Resolving file name collisions is a tricky problem, but users are efficient and successful.

Check out the video in our previous post on file management basics to see this design in action.

We love feedback and want to use it to make the best design we can, so we’ve been carefully reading all your comments, and look forward to you working with it in practice.

-- Ben Truelove, Matt Duignan, Jon Class, and Ilana Smith

(If you missed them, several of our team members made comments on the previous post that addressed some of the questions raised: Alex, Matt, Jordi, Jon.)

 

[brotkasten]

Oh this will be hilarious. I'm gonna get some popcorn.

A new blog post details the improvements of the new Explorer in Windows 8 and just like we saw in the leaked screenshots ind builds, it has ribbons. I'm not gonna paste the whole thing here, but I recommend you to visit the blog and read the damn thing.

Windows Explorer is a foundation of the user experience of the Windows desktop and has undergone several design changes over the years, but has not seen a substantial change in quite some time. Windows 8 is about reimagining Windows, so we took on the challenge to improve the most widely used desktop tool (except maybe for Solitaire) in Windows. Alex Simons on the program management team authored this post with a detailed look at the evolution of Explorer and the major improvements to its interface and functionality for Windows 8. Judging by the passion on file operations and user interface design, we know this is an important subject so we expect a pretty engaged dialog on the topic. We put this in one lengthy post, will watch the comments and dialog, and down the road we'll continue the discussion.
-- Steven

...

Goals of the new Windows Explorer

We set out to accomplish three main goals with this new version of Explorer.

1. Optimize Explorer for file management tasks. Return Explorer to its roots as an efficient file manager and expose some hidden gems, those file management commands already in Explorer that many customers might not even know exist.
2. Create a streamlined command experience. Put the most used commands in the most prominent parts of the UI so they are easy to find, in places that make sense and are reliable. Organize the commands in predictable places and logical groupings according to context, and present relevant information right where you need it.
3. Respect Explorer’s heritage. Maintain the power and richness of Explorer and bring back the most relevant and requested features from the Windows XP era when the current architecture and security model of Windows permits.

We evaluated several different UI command affordances including expanded versions of the Vista/Windows 7 command bar, Windows 95/Windows XP style toolbars and menus, several entirely new UI approaches, and the Office style ribbon. Of these, the ribbon approach offered benefits in line with our goals:

• Provides the ability to put the most important commands in very prominent, front and center locations.
• Makes it easy to find commands predictably and reliably. Every important file management command could be given a home in the ribbon, and customers would always know where to look for them.
• Exposes a large set of commands (~200) in one easy and consistent experience and organizes commands into scenario-focused groups without the use of nested menus, popups, dialogs, and right-click menus.
• Aids command identification with support for grouping, a variety of button sizes and icons, and aids deeper investigation with live previews and expanded tooltips.
• Takes a similar approach to Office, Microsoft Paint, and Windows Live Essentials, which means that many of our customers will be familiar with the model and not have a lot to learn.
• Provides a consistent, reliable UI that doesn’t degrade over time like traditional toolbar and menu-based user interfaces do. See Jensen’s earlier blog on this topic from the development of the ribbon.

We knew that using a ribbon for Explorer would likely be met with skepticism by a set of power-users (like me), but there are clear benefits in ways that the ribbon:

• Exposes hidden features that they already use but which require third party add-ons to use in the Explorer UI today.
• Provides keyboard shortcuts for every command in the ribbon, something many people have been asking for.
• Provides UI customization with the quick access toolbar, taking us back to a customization level that is basically equivalent to Windows XP.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/26/improvements-in-windows-explorer.aspx

Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna hide, before I get killed in the upcoming blood bath. :lol

 

[Zombie James]

Fuck Ribbon. Hopefully it's something a simple registry setting will fix.

 

[Chris R]

Fuck Ribbon. Hopefully it's something a simple registry setting will fix.

It better be. Not that I plan on ditching Windows 7 any time soon, but seriously, the Ribbon is terrible in Office.

 

[SuperBonk]

Love the Ribbon. Glad to see it finally made its way to the program that needs it the most.

 

[Kabuki Quantum Lover]

The Ribbon seems to be Microsoft's genital herpes. Try as you might, you just can't get rid of it.

 

[giga]

It can be collapsed so I don't see the problem.

 

[clav]

I'm fine with it.

It seems the ribbon's inclusion was to make the Windows Explorer experience usable via touchscreen without a keyboard/mouse.

You can hide it anyway if you despise it so much.

 

[MatthewB92]

Will it have tabs? Not like it's really needed but it would be nice to have.

 

[Picobrain]

Uh looks terrible. I hope they fix this ribbon thing.

 

[Complex Shadow]

fixed.

 

[Vanillalite]

Leaked Random Video of Build 7927 for Win 8...

 

[clav]

Leaked Random Video of Build 7927 for Win 8...

Internal beta builds are already 8000+, so this is old.

 

[Vanillalite]

Internal beta builds are already 8000+, so this is old.

I know, but it was posted by Rafael Rivera on twitter so I figured I'd post it anyways.

 

[NinjaFridge]

Leaked Random Video of Build 7927 for Win 8...

shh...lets not leak our hard work

 

[captive]

you're all on crack, ribbon is fine.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Ribbon owns.

The new Copy & Replace dialog seems a cluttered mess, though.

 

[webcivilian]

Everything shown so far is mouse driven. Where is the touch stuff? If I'm using a iPad/slate device it would be really inefficient design to click on the check box button in one of the file copy scenarios.

 

[Im_Special]

You ribbon haters needs to read the article before freaking and chill out, its sounds like it's highly customizable, you can make the thing look exactly like XP if you wanted. It even has an Invert Selection, directly accessible checkboxes for file extensions and hidden files, time to get HYPE.

 

[Vanillalite]

Everything shown so far is mouse driven. Where is the touch stuff? If I'm using a iPad/slate device it would be really inefficient design to click on the check box button in one of the file copy scenarios.

Probably under wraps until they show it off at Build.

 

[harSon]

Everything shown so far is mouse driven. Where is the touch stuff? If I'm using a iPad/slate device it would be really inefficient design to click on the check box button in one of the file copy scenarios.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I

 

[3rdman]

When W8 launches, I'm shaving MS's logo into my head. I expect to be called "cool" and I expect no less than 3 posts showing Bill Gates approving my life choices.

 

[neptunes]

Ribbon is such an an unnecessary use of screen real estate

 

[Souldriver]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I

Looks and animates great.


I'm a little weary though if the combination of touch UI and mouse UI won't compromise the overal usability. Say: too much focus on touch controls, so using a mouse for it isn't as fast/intuitive as with current Windows versions. My biggest concerns are (1) that the new UI will need for more clicks and actions in order to actually do something you want, and (2) the move to a closer environment which allows for less customization by the usebase and the ability to mess around with the system itself. I'd hate it if all OS'es will be more like iOS in the future.


But my concerns might be unwarranted, and it might also be my archaic way of thinking about how computers work that needs to change.

 

[brotkasten]

Ribbon is such an an unnecessary use of screen real estate

I know, right?

Designing for a wider screen

When considering the ribbon UI, we knew we had to be conscious of one of the primary customer concerns we hear about: screen real estate. As we looked at ways to mitigate this issue, we dug up some more telemetry data for Windows 7:

As this data shows, widescreen formats (those with a resolution ratio > 1.3) have become the standard. Of the top 20 screen resolutions, 17 of them are widescreen formats and they account for 83% of the total Windows 7 PC base. This should make sense to everyone because the majority of PCs are laptops and almost all laptops are wide screen. The two common standard resolutions are almost exclusively desktop PCs. We had a lot of good discussion about display resolution in Engineering Windows 7 and likely this will be an interesting topic again.

Knowing this, we investigated a number of options for using widescreen formats more effectively with the goal that the total vertical space available for content was the same after we added the ribbon as it had been in Windows 7. We removed the header at the top of the main view and moved the Details pane to the right side (and also did a visual revamp of the pane) while keeping a one-line status bar at the bottom of the window where we show you critical information.

This approach gives you a new Details pane that is much easier to read, makes better use of widescreen formats, and preserves screen real estate for the main file/folder pane. The exact number of lines might vary a bit from PC to PC depending on what add-ins you have, but for the out-of-the-box configuration running full screen at 1366 X 768, you can actually fit two more lines on the screen than you could in Windows 7.

Figure 21 - Comparison of real estate used for data in Windows 7 Explorer versus "Windows 8" Explorer

And this comparison assumes you have the ribbon open. If you collapse the ribbon (double-click the tab, or click the Minimize arrow on the right side of the ribbon), you get even more vertical real estate with our new approach.

and it's such a shame that we can't minimize the ribbon and customize the quick access toolbar that comes with it.

 

[jagowar]

I really am surprised they are still adding all these "new" features to the mouse version of windows..... Although maybe its just what they are talking about and the touch version will have a ton more to show at build.

It really feels like this is their OS to make the transition from "windows/mouse" to "tiles/touch". They could not simply give up all that legacy so its still in there but I really got the impression that you would only go to the windowed os when something did not have support in the tiles version (office was the example given in the first video). The fact that they are making all these tweaks to the old version might mean it will play a bigger role in w8 than I thought. IMO its a bad thing if we are going to have to constantly switch between the windowed and tiled version of the os.

Guess we will find out in a few weeks.

 

[brotkasten]

I really am surprised they are still adding all these "new" features to the mouse version of windows..... Although maybe its just what they are talking about and the touch version will have a ton more to show at build.

It really feels like this is their OS to make the transition from "windows/mouse" to "tiles/touch". They could not simply give up all that legacy so its still in there but I really got the impression that you would only go to the windowed os when something did not have support in the tiles version (office was the example given in the first video). The fact that they are making all these tweaks to the old version might mean it will play a bigger role in w8 than I thought. IMO its a bad thing if we are going to have to constantly switch between the windowed and tiled version of the os.

Guess we will find out in a few weeks.

To be honest, I'm not sure if I'd ever use the tiles screen on my desktop. I have three monitors and it would be completely useless to me, since I've always at least 5 windows open, that are scattered across the screens. Right now I'm using one screen only for MetroTwit and sometimes I think I could use at least one more. So yeah, as a power user, I welcome the new changes to the explorer and especially the new shortcuts and I'm glad that they keep improving the "legacy" interface.

 

[Truth101]

Ewww.....

There is still going to be the Metro look? Right?

Spoiler

Ribbon is so ugly

 

[Vanillalite]

I really am surprised they are still adding all these "new" features to the mouse version of windows..... Although maybe its just what they are talking about and the touch version will have a ton more to show at build.

It really feels like this is their OS to make the transition from "windows/mouse" to "tiles/touch". They could not simply give up all that legacy so its still in there but I really got the impression that you would only go to the windowed os when something did not have support in the tiles version (office was the example given in the first video). The fact that they are making all these tweaks to the old version might mean it will play a bigger role in w8 than I thought. IMO its a bad thing if we are going to have to constantly switch between the windowed and tiled version of the os.

Guess we will find out in a few weeks.

It's not as big of an issue as you are making it out to be because it'll work the way you need it based on the hardware at hand. They've constantly said it's gonna be an OS for both the traditional PC market as well as for touch enabled devices. Still considering how many regular old desktops and laptops there are out there in the world why wouldn't we assume we'd see lots of the current m/kb setup.

Plus considering we've seen a lot of prerelease stuff so far is it's no wonder we've seen more mouse and keyboard based footage. Everyone in the dev community already has a desktop/laptop that they can easily run this on. Outside of some prerelease dev hardware what do people have that they could easily just throw Win 8 on that's touch compatible? MS internally obviously has devices and such, but you know those things are on a tight leash.

I expect to see more of the titled setup post Build when more info is out there for all to see, and maybe more devices as well.

 

[jagowar]

To be honest, I'm not sure if I'd ever use the tiles screen on my desktop. I have three monitors and it would be completely useless to me, since I've always at least 5 windows open, that are scattered across the screens. Right now I'm using one screen only for MetroTwit and sometimes I think I could use at least one more. So yeah, as a power user, I welcome the new changes to the explorer and especially the new shortcuts and I'm glad that they keep improving the "legacy" interface.

I understand them keeping but from from everything I have seen the old start menu will not come forward.... when you click the start button in w8 you will get the tiles interface. IMO the tiles interface could span multiple screens just as well or give you some gesture to swap apps between your various screens.

If that is the case it seems awfully confusing to have both there.... and constantly swapping between them.

 

[lunarworks]

This is going to be quite the Frankenstein OS. Looks like we're going to be continuing the Good/Bad Windows release schedule...

98 (Good) - Me (Bad) - XP (Good) - Vista (Bad) - 7 (Good) - 8 (Bad)

So, Windows 9?

 

[Vanillalite]

Windows 8 chat with the guy that posted that Youtube video of the 7972 Build by Rafael Rivera!

Chat is on going about what build it is, where he got it, what's in it etc... etc...