Personally, I think it is for the literate business orientated person. It is not as much about being savvy but having the time to sort stuff out.
But wouldn't business people want Windows to use Office, corporate software and stuff like that? I always thought it was more for those who just wanted an internet device. The concept is good but they're limited.
But wouldn't business people want Windows to use Office, corporate software and stuff like that? I always thought it was more for those who just wanted an internet device. The concept is good but they're limited.
Well a few states have abandoned Microsoft Exchange and Office for Google Mail and Google apps for government.
For them it was cost and support so just maybe the very same for some small users.
I love W8 as do all my family and the majority of our friends who've switched, why do people keep saying its only for touch screens? nonsense, it works fine with mouse and keyboard:rolleyes::rolleyes:
What sort of user are you and your family. Are your family particularly computer literate?.
It may be ok if you don't do much multi-tasking and just use the pc in a simple way. I suppose some people may like the look of the tiled screen as it looks simpler ( though I can't stand it as it makes it look like a fisher price toy )
Everyone I know who has to use a desktop pc on non touch screen laptop properly would never consider windows 8. And most knowledgeable people I know who make a professional living out of IT hate it as it stands.
If I got a laptop for my aunt Betty who just wants to write the occasional letter, look at a few web site I'm sure she would like like it. But if your going to only use it that way you may as well get a tablet.
They should have vertical cascading tiles, as the mouse wheel is vertical, not horizontal. It just feels counterintuitive when scrolling through the tiles and they move left to right. I wonder why they decided to do that.
They should have vertical cascading tiles, as the mouse wheel is vertical, not horizontal. It just feels counterintuitive when scrolling through the tiles and they move left to right. I wonder why they decided to do that.
Obviously because it's primarily designed for touch-screens, and it's more natural to scroll through pages horizontally (and within a page vertically).
Can't say I find any difficulty using it with a mouse though.
Consumers has usually been able to get free email and even cheap Office so it looks like gmail was Google's way into the lucrative corporate market.
Office primarily got used because everyone else used it, not because it was good.
If 'email for everyone' had arrived first, would we even have had a Word?
Obviously because it's primarily designed for touch-screens, and it's more natural to scroll through pages horizontally (and within a page vertically).
Can't say I find any difficulty using it with a mouse though.
And that is the problem. Windows 8 has become a compromise between conflicting technologies.
Well a few states have abandoned Microsoft Exchange and Office for Google Mail and Google apps for government.
For them it was cost and support so just maybe the very same for some small users.
I think there will be a trend in the office world, where a small and medium company's who only need office type of software to operate will start realising that you can save a lot of money on it staff, server maintenance etc by utilising cloud style applications.
I think there will be a trend in the office world, where a small and medium company's who only need office type of software to operate will start realising that you can save a lot of money on it staff, server maintenance etc by utilising cloud style applications.
Until they lose their connection.
All these companies will need some specialist software, so they will end up with a basic network anyway to cater for that. Then you have to think about where the data is stored. There's a lot of things to consider before you take the plunge.
Until they lose their connection.
All these companies will need some specialist software, so they will end up with a basic network anyway to cater for that. Then you have to think about where the data is stored. There's a lot of things to consider before you take the plunge.
Pro business networks are very reliable these days and redundancy can always be built if needed. A few years ago it would have been a lot costlier and take more IT bods to do the same thing. The balance of cost is shifting.
A lot of offices can handle total power failures as it's common for there to be a local generator that will automatically kick in and the UPS's will keep power on until the generator takes over.
A cloud style system doesn't mean you keep the data in a third party server if you don't want to, for example sensitive accounts info and the like.
At the simplest level, Chromebooks now allow currently opened documents to continue to be edited if the connection is lost, and automatically synced to the cloud when a connection is restored.
I think there will be a trend in the office world, where a small and medium company's who only need office type of software to operate will start realising that you can save a lot of money on it staff, server maintenance etc by utilising cloud style applications.
Cloud computing is not entirely reliable though. What happens if the user is somewhere where there's no internet or only a very slow connection? Not to mention some users would be worried about privacy, especially when dealing with business stuff. I have a Dropbox account but I only use it for transferring photos from my phone to my Macs. I prefer to keep everything else on my hard drive. I'm sure a lot of other people think the same.
Consumers has usually been able to get free email and even cheap Office so it looks like gmail was Google's way into the lucrative corporate market.
Office primarily got used because everyone else used it, not because it was good.
If 'email for everyone' had arrived first, would we even have had a Word?
Yeah but when Gmail first came out didn't you have to be invited by another user to join? It's probably become more popular with the rise of Android phones. We probably would have still had Word as MS Word came out in the 1980s and was developed well before email became used by the masses. Even if email had come out in the 1980s, there would still have been a need for MS Word as business users, writers, people who post letters by snail mail and students would have needed it.
....Even if email had come out in the 1980s, there would still have been a need for MS Word as business users, writers, people who post letters by snail mail and students would have needed it.
Yes,
but it's prime use is still communication so maybe it would have been just part and parcel of the mail app.
Something like it would still exist but would be more niche.
Cloud computing is not entirely reliable though. What happens if the user is somewhere where there's no internet or only a very slow connection? Not to mention some users would be worried about privacy, especially when dealing with business stuff. I have a Dropbox account but I only use it for transferring photos from my phone to my Macs. I prefer to keep everything else on my hard drive. I'm sure a lot of other people think the same.
.
I'm talking business use where you would have a proper business fibre connection into your building. and why would the end user be in a place where there is no internet or network if they are working?
And by cloud style I mean software that can run on the company server not necessarily over the internet. Most legacy niche software is still client/server where you run the application on the client but the trend is toward cloud style software
So you might be running an accounts package at your local branch of the company but you're really running the application on the server lets say via a web application. With html5.
With the latest technologies it's much easier to build a rich user interface that is still affectively running like a dumb terminal.
There are a lot of advantages to this approach, if your local PC blows up you don't lose any work, you can probably use any pc on any operating system in the office to run the same software and if you have sufficient security in place it makes it a doddle to work from home as well. All the maintenance is then centralised and this will also make it more cost effective.
There are still some cases like say a video or Photoshop type of application where you need to run the application on the actual client machine.
What sort of user are you and your family. Are your family particularly computer literate?.
It may be ok if you don't do much multi-tasking and just use the pc in a simple way. I suppose some people may like the look of the tiled screen as it looks simpler ( though I can't stand it as it makes it look like a fisher price toy )
Everyone I know who has to use a desktop pc on non touch screen laptop properly would never consider windows 8. And most knowledgeable people I know who make a professional living out of IT hate it as it stands.
If I got a laptop for my aunt Betty who just wants to write the occasional letter, look at a few web site I'm sure she would like like it. But if your going to only use it that way you may as well get a tablet.
I've spoken about my own use before and finding it no worse (win7 on work laptop) win 8 on personal. Much prefer the start screen search on 8. The search results appear faster, they are cleaner with only one search type 'in focus' and you can see more results at any one time. Also the search index engine doesn't hammer disk I/O compared to Vista and 7.
But today I thought I'd speak about my Dad who isn't particularly technical but is running a four-screen desktop PC. The multi-monitor support is much better in 8 than 7 (e.g. taskbar on every screen) and he doesn't find the desktop any worse than in 7. He doesn't find Metro getting in his way.
He has a laptop running windows 7 so is able to compare on a daily basis just like me.
I've spoken about my own use before and finding it no worse (win7 on work laptop) win 8 on personal. Much prefer the start screen search on 8. The search results appear faster, they are cleaner with only one search type 'in focus' and you can see more results at any one time. Also the search index engine doesn't hammer disk I/O compared to Vista and 7.
But today I thought I'd speak about my Dad who isn't particularly technical but is running a four-screen desktop PC. The multi-monitor support is much better in 8 than 7 (e.g. taskbar on every screen) and he doesn't find the desktop any worse than in 7. He doesn't find Metro getting in his way.
He has a laptop running windows 7 so is able to compare on a daily basis just like me.
The issue on a multi monitor set-up on 8 is 2 fold, yes the mult-screen task bars are nice, but the charm bars popping up when not wanted is a major annoyance. Also the start screen when deployed will hide an entire screen which is also really rather annoying, with the weird scrolling behaviour which is also annoying.
I don't have much use for search to launch programs as I either have most of the things I use pinned to the start menu and I can remember most of the util apps I want to run by just windows + r and type the program name.
Can't you index the drive on windows 7 ?
I did a simple search on my windows 7 search screen for 'printer' and it took me straight to the printer settings. Apparently this sort of thing no longer works on 8
The issue on a multi monitor set-up on 8 is 2 fold, yes the mult-screen task bars are nice, but the charm bars popping up when not wanted is a major annoyance. Also the start screen when deployed will hide an entire screen which is also really rather annoying, with the weird scrolling behaviour which is also annoying.
I feel like you want to be annoyed by it so you can argue against it. No-one's making you use a scroll wheel, there are scroll bars, arrows on your keyboard and multi-touch trackpads that support swipes.
When the start menu is popped up on 7, your eyes and focus are on that whilst you're using it and it's only for a few seconds so is it being full screen so bad? Apart from start search/ Win+R type keyboard controls, you actively have to look at the start menu to use it so your eyes aren't on your other windows at that moment in time anyway.
I like that I can go to the start screen from any monitor, not just the primary monitor.
I find it better, the smaller all programs area in the windows 7 start menu needed more scrolling because you can't fit much in there. The search mixes everything up and can only show a few items at a time.
Here being full screen means I can see more in one go and find something faster, plus the search text is larger and the search results are "focused" so I can find something much quicker. In practice, I type a couple of letters and hit enter so the start screen is literally there for the blink of an eye.
I don't have much use for search to launch programs as I either have most of the things I use pinned to the start menu and I can remember most of the util apps I want to run by just windows + r and type the program name.
Pinning to the start menu is like pinning to the start screen except you can be faster due to larger hit targets, you can do it from any monitor and you have a 2D space to arrange them rather than just a 1D list.
The horizontal scroll takes 1 second to adjust to, you scroll the first time, you realise it's horizontal and your mind magically adapts.
Can't you index the drive on windows 7 ?
I did a simple search on my windows 7 search screen for 'printer' and it took me straight to the printer settings. Apparently this sort of thing no longer works on 8
Search indexing in 7 is ok. I turned it off in Vista because the constant disk I/O was maddening, it seems even better in 8 than 7. E.g. search results were blazing fast from the get go rather than after an index was created.
For printer it still works fine in 8, you just have to click on the settings search focus as the default is apps.
The issue on a multi monitor set-up on 8 is 2 fold, yes the mult-screen task bars are nice, but the charm bars popping up when not wanted is a major annoyance. Also the start screen when deployed will hide an entire screen which is also really rather annoying, with the weird scrolling behaviour which is also annoying.
I don't have much use for search to launch programs as I either have most of the things I use pinned to the start menu and I can remember most of the util apps I want to run by just windows + r and type the program name.
Can't you index the drive on windows 7 ?
I did a simple search on my windows 7 search screen for 'printer' and it took me straight to the printer settings. Apparently this sort of thing no longer works on 8
Pro business networks are very reliable these days...for example sensitive accounts info and the like.
I was thinking more of public cloud rather than private (although depends on the size of the business).
We had an hour power cut last month (affected a wide area) and could do nothing (as the servers with generator are in another building). There is also another widely used application that silently logs into a 3rd party server which is unreliable and is not up as much as it should be.
Can't see how you would split standing data on your Finance or HR system for sensitive data.
A bit off topic now!
I feel like you want to be annoyed by it so you can argue against it. No-one's making you use a scroll wheel, there are scroll bars, arrows on your keyboard and multi-touch trackpads that support swipes.
When the start menu is popped up on 7, your eyes and focus are on that whilst you're using it and it's only for a few seconds so is it being full screen so bad? Apart from start search/ Win+R type keyboard controls, you actively have to look at the start menu to use it so your eyes aren't on your other windows at that moment in time anyway.
I like that I can go to the start screen from any monitor, not just the primary monitor.
I find it better, the smaller all programs area in the windows 7 start menu needed more scrolling because you can't fit much in there. The search mixes everything up and can only show a few items at a time.
Here being full screen means I can see more in one go and find something faster, plus the search text is larger and the search results are "focused" so I can find something much quicker. In practice, I type a couple of letters and hit enter so the start screen is literally there for the blink of an eye.
Pinning to the start menu is like pinning to the start screen except you can be faster due to larger hit targets, you can do it from any monitor and you have a 2D space to arrange them rather than just a 1D list.
The horizontal scroll takes 1 second to adjust to, you scroll the first time, you realise it's horizontal and your mind magically adapts.
Search indexing in 7 is ok. I turned it off in Vista because the constant disk I/O was maddening, it seems even better in 8 than 7. E.g. search results were blazing fast from the get go rather than after an index was created.
For printer it still works fine in 8, you just have to click on the settings search focus as the default is apps.
I've got reasonable eyesight so I'd rather not have the whole screen full of icons for the visually impaired especially on a large monitor to open up a new program so yeah I think it's pretty bad.
I'm generally multitasking and concentrating on the main screen while I open up another program to work on a different aspect of the same project so it would get in the way of my productivity.
Sorry the scrolling side to side is daft and doesn't work. They did the same thing in Mac OSx by default in Lion but luckily there is an option to revert to desktop mode.
All they need to do is give people the options to have it set up to their own preferences.
I honestly can't see the logic of 'wanting to dislike something' so I can argue against it so I've no idea where you are coming from on that. I just say what my opinion is, which at the moment on window 8 isn't a good opinion.
Comments
But wouldn't business people want Windows to use Office, corporate software and stuff like that? I always thought it was more for those who just wanted an internet device. The concept is good but they're limited.
For them it was cost and support so just maybe the very same for some small users.
I didn't know that. I always thought companies used Windows, partly because it's widely used and partly to keep IT people in work.
What sort of user are you and your family. Are your family particularly computer literate?.
It may be ok if you don't do much multi-tasking and just use the pc in a simple way. I suppose some people may like the look of the tiled screen as it looks simpler ( though I can't stand it as it makes it look like a fisher price toy )
Everyone I know who has to use a desktop pc on non touch screen laptop properly would never consider windows 8. And most knowledgeable people I know who make a professional living out of IT hate it as it stands.
If I got a laptop for my aunt Betty who just wants to write the occasional letter, look at a few web site I'm sure she would like like it. But if your going to only use it that way you may as well get a tablet.
Obviously because it's primarily designed for touch-screens, and it's more natural to scroll through pages horizontally (and within a page vertically).
Can't say I find any difficulty using it with a mouse though.
Office primarily got used because everyone else used it, not because it was good.
If 'email for everyone' had arrived first, would we even have had a Word?
And that is the problem. Windows 8 has become a compromise between conflicting technologies.
I think there will be a trend in the office world, where a small and medium company's who only need office type of software to operate will start realising that you can save a lot of money on it staff, server maintenance etc by utilising cloud style applications.
All these companies will need some specialist software, so they will end up with a basic network anyway to cater for that. Then you have to think about where the data is stored. There's a lot of things to consider before you take the plunge.
So, how did it get to the stage where "everyone else used it?"
I'd say it was a combination of
Pro business networks are very reliable these days and redundancy can always be built if needed. A few years ago it would have been a lot costlier and take more IT bods to do the same thing. The balance of cost is shifting.
A lot of offices can handle total power failures as it's common for there to be a local generator that will automatically kick in and the UPS's will keep power on until the generator takes over.
A cloud style system doesn't mean you keep the data in a third party server if you don't want to, for example sensitive accounts info and the like.
Cloud computing is not entirely reliable though. What happens if the user is somewhere where there's no internet or only a very slow connection? Not to mention some users would be worried about privacy, especially when dealing with business stuff. I have a Dropbox account but I only use it for transferring photos from my phone to my Macs. I prefer to keep everything else on my hard drive. I'm sure a lot of other people think the same.
Yeah but when Gmail first came out didn't you have to be invited by another user to join? It's probably become more popular with the rise of Android phones. We probably would have still had Word as MS Word came out in the 1980s and was developed well before email became used by the masses. Even if email had come out in the 1980s, there would still have been a need for MS Word as business users, writers, people who post letters by snail mail and students would have needed it.
but it's prime use is still communication so maybe it would have been just part and parcel of the mail app.
Something like it would still exist but would be more niche.
I'm talking business use where you would have a proper business fibre connection into your building. and why would the end user be in a place where there is no internet or network if they are working?
And by cloud style I mean software that can run on the company server not necessarily over the internet. Most legacy niche software is still client/server where you run the application on the client but the trend is toward cloud style software
So you might be running an accounts package at your local branch of the company but you're really running the application on the server lets say via a web application. With html5.
With the latest technologies it's much easier to build a rich user interface that is still affectively running like a dumb terminal.
There are a lot of advantages to this approach, if your local PC blows up you don't lose any work, you can probably use any pc on any operating system in the office to run the same software and if you have sufficient security in place it makes it a doddle to work from home as well. All the maintenance is then centralised and this will also make it more cost effective.
There are still some cases like say a video or Photoshop type of application where you need to run the application on the actual client machine.
Maybe it would, who knows? It's hard to predict what could have been.
I've spoken about my own use before and finding it no worse (win7 on work laptop) win 8 on personal. Much prefer the start screen search on 8. The search results appear faster, they are cleaner with only one search type 'in focus' and you can see more results at any one time. Also the search index engine doesn't hammer disk I/O compared to Vista and 7.
But today I thought I'd speak about my Dad who isn't particularly technical but is running a four-screen desktop PC. The multi-monitor support is much better in 8 than 7 (e.g. taskbar on every screen) and he doesn't find the desktop any worse than in 7. He doesn't find Metro getting in his way.
He has a laptop running windows 7 so is able to compare on a daily basis just like me.
In some ways it could make sense to be able to do the rendering on a super powerful server.
The issue on a multi monitor set-up on 8 is 2 fold, yes the mult-screen task bars are nice, but the charm bars popping up when not wanted is a major annoyance. Also the start screen when deployed will hide an entire screen which is also really rather annoying, with the weird scrolling behaviour which is also annoying.
I don't have much use for search to launch programs as I either have most of the things I use pinned to the start menu and I can remember most of the util apps I want to run by just windows + r and type the program name.
Can't you index the drive on windows 7 ?
I did a simple search on my windows 7 search screen for 'printer' and it took me straight to the printer settings. Apparently this sort of thing no longer works on 8
I feel like you want to be annoyed by it so you can argue against it. No-one's making you use a scroll wheel, there are scroll bars, arrows on your keyboard and multi-touch trackpads that support swipes.
When the start menu is popped up on 7, your eyes and focus are on that whilst you're using it and it's only for a few seconds so is it being full screen so bad? Apart from start search/ Win+R type keyboard controls, you actively have to look at the start menu to use it so your eyes aren't on your other windows at that moment in time anyway.
I like that I can go to the start screen from any monitor, not just the primary monitor.
I find it better, the smaller all programs area in the windows 7 start menu needed more scrolling because you can't fit much in there. The search mixes everything up and can only show a few items at a time.
Here being full screen means I can see more in one go and find something faster, plus the search text is larger and the search results are "focused" so I can find something much quicker. In practice, I type a couple of letters and hit enter so the start screen is literally there for the blink of an eye.
Pinning to the start menu is like pinning to the start screen except you can be faster due to larger hit targets, you can do it from any monitor and you have a 2D space to arrange them rather than just a 1D list.
The horizontal scroll takes 1 second to adjust to, you scroll the first time, you realise it's horizontal and your mind magically adapts.
Search indexing in 7 is ok. I turned it off in Vista because the constant disk I/O was maddening, it seems even better in 8 than 7. E.g. search results were blazing fast from the get go rather than after an index was created.
For printer it still works fine in 8, you just have to click on the settings search focus as the default is apps.
Lots of things annoy you. Relax, enjoy life
We had an hour power cut last month (affected a wide area) and could do nothing (as the servers with generator are in another building). There is also another widely used application that silently logs into a 3rd party server which is unreliable and is not up as much as it should be.
Can't see how you would split standing data on your Finance or HR system for sensitive data.
A bit off topic now!
I've got reasonable eyesight so I'd rather not have the whole screen full of icons for the visually impaired especially on a large monitor to open up a new program so yeah I think it's pretty bad.
I'm generally multitasking and concentrating on the main screen while I open up another program to work on a different aspect of the same project so it would get in the way of my productivity.
Sorry the scrolling side to side is daft and doesn't work. They did the same thing in Mac OSx by default in Lion but luckily there is an option to revert to desktop mode.
All they need to do is give people the options to have it set up to their own preferences.
I honestly can't see the logic of 'wanting to dislike something' so I can argue against it so I've no idea where you are coming from on that. I just say what my opinion is, which at the moment on window 8 isn't a good opinion.