3 Reasons Windows 8.1 is better
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IIRC, Chrome on iOS used to be a rescinded Safari because Apple would not allow a different browser on their devices? Or am I way off on that one?
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Works like a native browser on my iPad, I never bothered going too much into the details.
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Yes. Now read the second paragraph.
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Yes. You can install new "browsers" on iOS but AFAIK they all must use the built in web viewer component meant for things like loading a password recovery webpage in-app. The exception is Safari, which IIRC gets to have a different engine (and it's usually newer and faster).
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Even Microsoft's own Office stayed with "classic desktop" WPF.
Metro Office is apparently coming. It's a pretty big task to rewrite it all in WinRT (especially as the original WinRT API that Windows 8 (not 8.1) used was a little lacking). It was simply quicker and easier to get the existing code to compile for ARM
Limit the software sources to Microsoft's own app store and NOTHING else.
It's only on Windows RT (ie. ARM-based tablets) that you have this restriction. Windows 8/8.1 running on x86/x64 still allows that "traditional" way of installing programs, and I doubt that will ever change (or if it does, it will take a great many years). GabeN bitched about this years ago, and was so far off the mark it's amazing anyone still believes this.
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Not to mention that while you can make other browsers for iOS (see Chrome and Opera browsers in the iOS App Store), they have to use Safari's rendering engine. They're basically just glorified tab and bookmark managers.
Edit: which I see you basically said in your reply to Intercourse. Not reading the entire thread is a barrier to repeating points made by others.
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It's only on Windows RT (ie. ARM-based tablets) that you have this restriction. Windows 8/8.1 running on x86/x64 still allows that "traditional" way of installing programs, and I doubt that will ever change (or if it does, it will take a great many years). GabeN bitched about this years ago, and was so far off the mark it's amazing anyone still believes this.
The only way to distribute metro apps is through Microsoft's app store. No other app stores, no independent installers / sideloading. If that has changed, I haven't heard about it.
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Ok, yes that is true. But for people using desktops (and most laptops, esp non-touchscreen models), the Windows Store/Metro apps is/are supplementary. Unless you're on a tablet, it's not expected to be the primary place you go to find new programs (that said, there are already games available solely through the Windows Store, like Halo: Spartan Assault, but how is that any different from games that are only distributed via Steam? It's not.)
Sideloading unsigned apps is possible btw, but it's intended mainly for Line of Business apps (ie. intended for businesses who have created the app specifically for their business).
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Ok, yes that is true. But for people using desktops (and most laptops, esp non-touchscreen models), the Windows Store/Metro apps is/are supplementary. Unless you're on a tablet, it's not expected to be the primary place you go to find new programs
Yeah, and the point was, how nice it would be if you could get desktop apps from some kind of app store and have a unified updater, instead of chasing down each installer separately and having 15 active updater services.
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Yeah, and the point was, how nice it would be if you could get desktop apps from some kind of app store and have a unified updater, instead of chasing down each installer separately and having 15 active updater services.
That was a different point to the one being made in what I had quoted.
Now if only MS didn't:
•<snip>
•Limit the software sources to Microsoft's own app store and NOTHING else.
That quote was relating specifically to Metro apps, which is what I was making my points on.For a unified place to get desktop apps and updates... I don't think this will ever work on Windows. Steam almost accomplished it for games, then they and EA had a spat so then EA games were only available via Origin, and we end up with several separate distributors with no to little overlap.
Even if Microsoft went ahead and made the whole service, there'd be a group of companies (Google, Apple) that would not only withhold their own programs from it, but tell the world everything that was wrong with it while launching their own. While yet others don't put their programs on any service at all. The alternative is to just lock it down to only that service, but that won't go over well with anyone.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice. I just don't think it will work out given the bickering that happens between the major players.
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how nice it would be if you could get desktop apps from some kind of app store and have a unified updater, instead of chasing down each installer separately and having 15 active updater services.
if Microsoft went ahead and made the whole service, there'd be a group of companies (Google, Apple) that would not only withhold their own programs from it, but tell the world everything that was wrong with it while launching their own. While yet others don't put their programs on any service at all. The alternative is to just lock it down to only that service, but that won't go over well with anyone
Pretty much what @Spencer said: the only way to get a unified acquisition/update pipeline is to enforce it as the only permissible one - which would probably land Microsoft in anti-trust hot water again, because they're an acceptable target for some reason.
At the end of the day, the platform provider may try their best, but the availability of software through a specific platform will depend solely on the willingness of software providers to go through that platform. As a matter of personal preference, I would rather not see such a unified distribution platform, because having a single filter point has a lot more downsides than it has upsides.
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I was thinking something more like apt-get, where anyone can open their own shop if they don't want to deal with official "store".
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I was thinking something more like apt-get, where anyone can open their own shop if they don't want to deal with official "store".
For some reason, when I think of something like that in a Windows context the phrase "attack vector" springs into my mind.
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For some reason, when I think of something like that in a Windows context the phrase "attack vector" springs into my mind.
That's not totally wrong. It's just that right now we have a lot of those attack vectors, and they're called websites. And the scourge of countless updaters installed on our machines.
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I'm thinking more in terms of a single trusted channel being opened up to third parties. I can't imagine people not complaining to MS if any malware went in through that channel.
Right now, Microsoft is keeping out of the software acquisition/installation/service path with regards to third-parties, which let's them disclaim any responsibility for stupidity on the part of their users. If they were to get involved - even by way of providing the infrastructure - then it is likely that such a service would be seen as "Verified by Microsoft" by users and it's not at all certain that the courts would not consider such an expectation reasonable.
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then it is likely that such a service would be seen as "Verified by Microsoft" by users and it's not at all certain that the courts would not consider such an expectation reasonable.
Probably true. I guess that's one way that the nature of the beast keeps us all from having nice things. I still think it's totally viable for updates. I think dowloading an msi package from somewhere is reasonable.
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[quote="cartman82, post:82, topic:2186"]
This is what I don't get. Microsoft got into hot water for making IE a part of their OS. Yet Google and Apple are doing the EXACT SAME THING on their mobile platforms, on top of requiring you to PAY THEM to get anything published and censoring you if they don't like you. And they keep getting away with it.[/QUOTE]
If you think that's bad, by the time the lawsuit actually went anywhere, it'd already become standard to ship a browser with GUIs: IE with Windows, IE with Mac (until it was replaced by Safari in 10.3), Konqueror with KDE, and Galeon with GNOME (later replaced by Epiphany/Web).
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Metro solved a bunch of technical issues and annoyances traditional Windows has been having since basically forever, such as:
<\snip>
limiting application privileges to make sure that the bunny game isn't a trojan horse to begin with, and of course you're running it as root because you disabled UAC because every fucking cool kid runs everything as root anyway amirite? What could possibly go wrong?This. For the record, I LIKE UAC because too many users don't realize what the !#@!! they're doing when they click on a download, etc., and that extra forced prompt sometimes saves us from having to do a station quarantine and reimage.
We run Windows 7. One of our apps, even on the latest released-last-month code, STILL won't work without UAC disabled, or it's a crapshoot whether it will launch at all or crash while in use. So UAC has to be disabled on the ~15% of stations that are required to run it.
But I can't blame them since Microsoft's own Office 2010 SP2 won't activate if UAC is turned on. Ironically, SP1 worked fine. WTF?
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Now if they went the apt-get route and added support for desktop apps, with their app store being the default but not the only choice, that would be a different story.
Let's throw some love to our discovictim's blog:
Get some packages with Microsoft OneGet
Are you a Windows user? Do you see people using apt-get [https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto] and Homebrew [http://brew.sh/] and get filled with rage? Are you not a fan of chocolate? [https://chocolatey.org/] Well, then, you are in luck! Introducing, OneGet. What is OneGet? OneGet
Looks like MS is experimenting with something like this. All the links to MS are stale and therefore broken, but the github stuff is still up (though last commit was like a month ago) and the twitter account is still up, though pretty low volume.
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Uuuuuuhhhhh...
Me likey.
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Windows is ended. 7 is as good as it got.
I disagree. The start menu was neutered in Vista. I know why the did it, but the result sucks shit. The start screen isn't actually bad when you get used to it.
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By default, packages will be downloaded and installed to C:\Chocolatey\lib when using the Chocolatey repository.
DERP. Fail.
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The start screen isn't actually bad when you get used to it.
That sounds like Stockholm syndrome to me. It really is that bad.
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@Intercourse said:
It really is that bad.
No, really, it's not. The post-XP menu is a little rectangle that auto-sorts and requires scrolling, plus it scrolls automatically. By contrast, the screen is full of much larger, easier-to-hit icons that you can sort in your preferred order, arrange into groups, can be multiple sizes, and can even be those little live tile things.
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No, really, it's not. The post-XP menu is a little rectangle that auto-sorts and requires scrolling, plus it scrolls automatically. By contrast, the screen is full of much larger, easier-to-hit icons that you can sort in your preferred order, arrange into groups, can be multiple sizes, and can even be those little live tile things.
Answer me this, because I don't fucking feel like looking for it myself as the functionality was taken away, is there any mechanism to move Start screen configurations between machines?
In Server 2008R2 and below, I could get to what I needed in just a couple of clicks. Now if I want to do the same I have to setup each server individually and add all of the most commonly used apps to the Start screen manually. So instead of doing that I hit the Windows key and start typing what I need, and in many cases I have to either move through the selections with the arrow key or select them with the mouse once they come up. They have taken something that used to be ~2 clicks in a couple of seconds, to being multiple movements between keyboard and mouse.
We work on a fuckload of servers, I am not going through and adding all the shit I use to each of them manually. That was the other thing I liked about the Start button, the shit I use the most is right there. If my work changes and I start using other shit more, it gets put on the list. Need to find something that you do not use all the time and cannot quite remember the name but remember where it is located? It is just a couple of nav movements away.
I fucking hate the Start screen. It is shit. If I were on a tablet, I would probably like it. If I had a touchscreen monitor (because apparently people like smudges on their fucking screens), then I might like it. As of right now, I think it is shit.
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No, really, it's not. The post-XP menu is a little rectangle that auto-sorts and requires scrolling, plus it scrolls automatically. By contrast, the screen is full of much larger, easier-to-hit icons that you can sort in your preferred order, arrange into groups, can be multiple sizes, and can even be those little live tile things.
The post-XP menu may be a little rectangle and require scrolling but at least it has the decency to be hierarchical.
The [s]Metro[/s] Start Screen is a massive rectangle that also requires scrolling. But at least the gazillions of readmes and other crap files I don't care about can be arranged in various fashions and are easy to hit should there ever be the occasion where I want to click on them (which would be [i]never[/i]) ;).
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@Intercourse said:
because apparently people like smudges on their fucking screens
My first and only touchscreen phone is awesome.I get to pick between ear smudges, remembering to manually lock the screen or having an unlocked screen that may accidentally cut calls or turn on the loudspeaker.
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@Intercourse said:
Answer me this, because I don't fucking feel like looking for it myself as the functionality was taken away, is there any mechanism to move Start screen configurations between machines?
Sign in with a Microsoft account and it's automagic.
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give me hives. Blinky flashy distractions DO NOT WANT
Well fortunately you don't even see 'em unless you're on the start screen. Plus you could always delete the tile if you didn't like it.
I dunno if there's a way to turn off the live updates.
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@Intercourse said:
Answer me this, because I don't fucking feel like looking for it myself as the functionality was taken away, is there any mechanism to move Start screen configurations between machines?
This might work for you?
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Sign in with a Microsoft account and it's automagic.
You might not want to do that with your work computer.
Also, FOAD, Atwood.
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Sign in with a Microsoft account and it's automagic.
#1 Fuck that
#2 I am not sure that would be a good idea on client's server.
#3 Fuck this fucking Markdown parser.
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Ok, then don't do it. Whatever. Point is, they already have that feature. It's not Microsoft's fault you don't want to use it.
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Ok, then don't do it. Whatever. Point is, they already have that feature. It's not Microsoft's fault you don't want to use it.
This will be my reply to everything you bitch about from this point forth.
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You asked, "does the feature exist?" I said yes. Then you posted, "whiny bitch whine bitchy baby crying waaah" and I said, "what the fuck ever, you asked if it existed, and it does, go away."
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Is there an open source solution? I prefer open source, because it is open source.
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@Intercourse said:
In Server 2008R2 and below, I could get to what I needed in just a couple of clicks. Now if I want to do the same I have to setup each server individually and add all of the most commonly used apps to the Start screen manually. So instead of doing that I hit the Windows key and start typing what I need, and in many cases I have to either move through the selections with the arrow key or select them with the mouse once they come up. They have taken something that used to be ~2 clicks in a couple of seconds, to being multiple movements between keyboard and mouse.
In Win 8 you can use Win-S.
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@Intercourse said:
Win + (start typing) does the exact same thing.
Either way it drastically cuts down on the need to actually navigate the screen, which reduces many complaints about Windows 8 to "wah, I don't like this thing I barely need to use"
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I know I've posted this in the past, but I think Microsoft's big problem with Windows 8 is they assumed people had actually adopted Windows 7 first.
If you come from XP, and aren't used to doing Windows key + search term for everything, then you're totally lost when you get Windows 8.
The real headscratcher for me is those people who have Windows 7, and don't use the Windows key + search term thing. Those people are just hopelessly set in their ways, and should probably have their computers confiscated and replaced with, I don't know, bottles of Geritol or something.
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Centrum Silver
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The real headscratcher for me is those people who have Windows 7, and don't use the Windows key + search term thing.
I do, if it is not in my list of recent apps, which 90+% of my usage is.
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@Intercourse said:
I do, if it is not in my list of recent apps, which 90+% of my usage is.
Well, that's the other thing--if you're like most people you probably pinned all the things you use commonly to the taskbar or desktop.
While I prefer the screen to the menu, I don't actually use it all that often, because 90% of what I do is pinned to my desktop.
At the time, Microsoft claimed that was what their usability studies showed.
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But it doesn't take over the entire screen, perhaps the most common Metro complaint.
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If you come from XP, and aren't used to doing Windows key + search term for everything, then you're totally lost when you get Windows 8.
I am a heavy user of the Window 7 Start + search method and yet I hate the way it is implemented in 8. Probably because the sudden interface switch is about as pleasant as getting a battering ram to your privates.
Besides, just yesterday I wanted to start a program and thanks to a momentary brain fart I just could not remember its name. Cue 5 minutes of looking through crap before I was able to find it. This happened to me on 7 before, I found it in 30 seconds.
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Besides, just yesterday I wanted to start a program and thanks to a momentary brain fart I just could not remember its name
Be warned, those get more frequent as you get older. (Damn, what was I just looking for...)
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I am a heavy user of the Window 7 Start + search method and yet I hate the way it is implemented in 8. Probably because the sudden interface switch is about as pleasant as getting a battering ram to your privates.
My sentiments exactly!
Besides, just yesterday I wanted to start a program and thanks to a momentary brain fart I just could not remember its name. Cue 5 minutes of looking through crap before I was able to find it. This happened to me on 7 before, I found it in 30 seconds.
+∞
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Be warned, those get more frequent as you get older. (Damn, what was I just looking for...)
Considering I am in the early twenties you scare me very much!
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Sign in with a Microsoft account and it's automagic.
Ever try to fix a corrupt profile in Win8 that's Automagically downloaded from MS?
I miss the old (Win7 and earlier) days when simply logging in as another admin account and deleting the bad profile was all that was needed.
Filed under: this belongs in the
badnightmare ideas thread until they provide an escape clause.
