That Darn Microsoft!

A friend said today he expects that enterprise will skip this one just like they did with Vista. Probably would've even if it wasn't a paradigm shift.

I don't personally feel that old school windows is inherently hideous. I'm perfectly fine with Windows 7. It's just some decisions they made to cripple the desktop environment in order to force people into the Metro Modern UI.

(I want to call it Kilroy... Modern -> Modren -> Kilroy)

Font rendering is horribly, horribly broken in Windows 8. Like, shockingly bad.

Since today is the first day the RTM has been made available to MSDN subscribers, there's no good information available about it online either. There are plenty of threads where people complained about the issue in the preview release but those were all dismissed with "it's not the final version". Now we have the final version and it's terrible.

The funny thing is, I was having a problem with font-rendering in Chrome on Windows as well. For some reason, Chrome renders fonts properly on Macs and it renders fonts properly on Linux but in Windows, Chrome has some weird issue where anti-aliasing is broken. If you're running Windows 7 and have IE9 and Chrome installed, take a look at the following page:

http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/Play

In IE9, the fonts are rendered perfectly smooth. In Chrome, it's all jagged like there's no antialiasing being applied at all.

On Windows 8, Chrome looks pretty much the same as it does on Windows 7 but everything else on Windows 8 looks even worse. IE10's font rendering is worse than Chrome. It's like the entire OS is ignoring the ClearType settings.

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Cloudscout
I don't personally feel that old school windows is inherently hideous.

On a 1024x768 screen with a touch UI I think it might be. I'm fine with Windows 7 myself. How else would I game?

What was wrong with Windows 7? Why did they need to force an upgrade?

They need the money from a new OS version release, and they wanted a "unified" OS with Metro UI for ARM and Intel tablets, and Intel PC's. They're always big on Windows everywhere, so I don't think that it's surprising that they're chasing this unified solution, but I don't think that it's going to work.

I think it's less about needing money from a new OS and more about wanting to get some of that sweet, sweet app-store money like Apple is getting now.

Good point, I hadn't thought of that.

I just read a description in game chat for the Secret World, describing Windows 8. "It's like they took everything shitty about iOS and everything buggy about Android, and put it in Windows 7, which was fine as it was."

So Ballmer is creating logos now too? http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/23/new-microsoft-corporate-logo/

This is a classic example of doubling down on what worked (note the past tense). Windows is seen as the past (even if it will take a decade more of attrition to demonstrate that).

If MS had truly wanted to shake things up, to "demonstrate they're back" (as one recent "pundit" put it) a clean identity break would have been a great place to start (even acknowledging the product break would be long coming still).

The irony is that the new UI they're pushing people towards doesn't use the "window" metaphor anymore. It's now just a name.

A name to conjure with. A name to shriek in black rites while the screams of tortured sacrifices mingle with guttural gibberish chanted by dark demons in a moonless night.


Er, j/k, Windows 7 is great. Really.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2012 07:13AM by John Willoughby.

My first impression of the logo is that I can see the thinking behind it, which I think isn't bad: take the familiar squares which used to be W/windowpanes and alter them so that they now resemble tiles, which the future of Windows is "and always has been and always will be" (until the next change).

However:

1. I'm not sold on the typeface. It's not bad, and probably would be a good screen sans font for smaller UI elements like titles, but large like that? The loops are a bit too round, and it looks enough like other common fonts that it niggles at the mind's eye.

2. The center-align of the name with the logo is just... not right. Either make the text as tall as the graphic element, or set up a visual design template with the text bottom-aligned (to privilege the "tiles") or top-aligned (to allow product branding to fit nicely under the Microsoft name, but within the aegis of the "tiles" image).

3. Wonder how the "upright" visual nature will play. It's not leaning/dynamic any more, but is that metaphor dated, whether or not it's applicable?

ddt

I find it interesting that the new desktop UI in Win8 doesn't require anti-aliasing for most of the widgets since everything has gone back to clean rectangles. It has also eliminated most shading in windows decorations.

This UI is fully optimized for streaming over the network.

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Cloudscout
This UI is fully optimized for streaming over the network.

That would be some Azure heritage (or desire, depending on how you look at it), no?

I'm not sure whether it is intentional or if it's just a happy coincidence as they tried to blend the live-tile motif with the desktop UI.

It's sure to please Citrix and VMWare, et al. since it will contribute to improved scalability of their VDI solutions.

Jeff, run don't walk.... http://content.microsoftstore.com/store/surface-holiday/Indianapolis-IN

I think this Windows RT stuff is going to be a problem. They aren't making it very clear to customers up front about the complete incompatibility with all legacy Windows software or the fact that you can ONLY install software purchased through the Windows Store. It is an absolute walled garden like iOS.

People were upset with the 32-bit/64-bit, Home, Pro, Ultimate, Enterprise, Cosmic Waffle versions of Windows 7. I can't imagine that it's going to get better when you throw in Windows 8 and their tablet versions.

Ok. The MS Surface was more like the "your name on rice" stand. But to tell the truth, it was fairly swarming with people playing with their tablet thingies.
I looked at it for a couple of minutes. Kinda wide. Not bad. My eyes did not like scanning the weird variously-sized icons. They'll likely sell a couple.

The Apple store in same mall, steps away, was its regular "Don't they have fire protection code for number of people in one store" crowded.