Feedback wanted: Top Complaints about Metro

[brad jones]

I'm going to do a couple of articles (possibly), so I'm looking for some feedback that I'll aggregate together. I'm posting a couple of threads to capture this from you -

In this thread, the question is:

What is your top complain about Microsoft's Metro? Please state the complaint and then provide some information on why.

Thanks!

[brad jones]

I'll throw one out to get this started:

I don't like the fact that there seems to be two versions of Internet Explorer running - one on the desktop and one that is Metro.

It seems a bit inconsistent to have two different browser interfaces running. It seems like there should either be a Metro version or a non-Metro version, but not both.

[brad jones]

I'll throw out a second one as well:

I don't like the fact that it is not easy to know how to access things.

For example, you have to know to move the mouse to the top right to see running apps, or to the bottom left to get to Start. There is nothing that makes it abvious -or that lets you even konw that such options exist. This is true for the Windows interface as well as at the app level for some Metro apps. How long did it take you to figure out in the Metro version of IE how to add a new "tab"?

A lot of the navigation seems to be a hide-and-seek game.

[Max Peck]

The thing that bothers me about Metro is the rather jarring difference in how the interface works as compared with the desktop environment. Yes, the desktop is still supported but I found jumping in and out of metro and it's different paradigm to be distracting. After playing with it in a VM for awhile (all of the preview versions) I'm not as inclined to be annoyed by it as I was but I still haven't sold myself on why I would want to use it, particularly in a desktop environment.

Like usual I was against it at first and have softened my position on it as I've taken repeated looks at it. I don't know if I'll ever completely embrace it or not. My main computing environment is desktop, though I do have an iPhone 4S and iPad 3 and I find those 2 former ones pleasant to use. I'm still having trouble liking the appearance of the big flat-looking tiles in Metro. They seem like such a waste of screen real-estate.

[kleinma]

Brad,

I heard we can expect a "tutorial" of sorts when Win8 goes RTM. I am not sure if this is something we will see installing RTM bits or something that will be turned on by OEMs when the product ships, but some of the feedback around the missing start button and other things was claimed to be addressed by giving the user a quick run through the first time they use it. If done well I can see it being a good thing to have. Hopefully it doesn't confuse people.

As far as the 2 IE versions, I believe the logic there is that the metro one comes first (unless you launch IE from the desktop specifically), but the metro one has a button to switch you over to the full version. So in the event you get to some site that needs an AX control, or flash that is not whitelisted by the metro flash plugin, you can easily flip over to desktop mode and view the page there. Favorites don't seem to span both browsers, but I think that may be fixed by RTM.

As far as my gripes, I don't like that metro apps only have 2 visual states, full screen, or side bar. I know it is a V1 and might be enhanced in the future, but I tend to have lots of windows up all the time on my PC. I do have 4 LCDs on my work PC and 2 LCDs on my home PC, so it is nice that you can opt which screen metro will run on, and the rest is all traditional desktop. They also did a good job having the corners "catch" the mouse on multi screen setups, so that is is easy to get into the corners to bring up the various menus that come up when you put your mouse there.

The other gripe would be that metro is a bit locked down, and everything has to go through the app store, I read side loaded apps will only work when you are on a domain (maybe this changed?). Of course as a developer, I can write my own apps that get installed into metro on my machine, but I dont think I could do something like send you my compiled metro app and have you install it on your machine. (I would have to send you the source code).

[brad jones]

Good comments Matt --

I've not run on mulitple monitors (yet) with Windows 8. I'll try that later today. Is it possible to have different metro apps running on each monitor with their own sidebar apps too? Your comment implies it is not (that secondary monitors will be desktop). If different Metro apps can't run on different monitors, then that seems like a flaw....

I know there was a recent announcement on being able to install 'business apps." I assume that is an App Store work around so that corporations could install internal applications. Without this, I can't see a lot of businesses upgrading to Windows 8. I don't think Bank of America is going to want to install their internal agent apps via an app store....

[kleinma]

metro is restricted right now to a single monitor, they just let you pick which one (you can easily just drag the entire metro start screen or open metro app to another monitor, like you would drag a desktop window in win7 to another monitor. Once you put it on that different monitor, that is now the start screen location until you decide to move it somewhere else (a good feature). Metro itself as a whole I guess can be thought of as a single application that spans a single monitor in this regard. Perhaps a V2 will yield more options.

Right so I heard the restriction will be based on "if you are on a domain, you can side load apps" I am assuming with some domain signed cert instead of the cert the window store would sign it with. Even development of metro apps requires a cert (which is a self signed, self generated one by visual studio). However joe shmoe can't write a metro app and offer it for download on his website for the masses. It must go through the app store and the approval process. I suppose this makes sure apps will run as expected and not impact system performance, which I take to be mostly related to ARM devices. My i7 SSD system at home would have no problem running several metro apps all at once.

Also, as a side note, the "god mode" folder hack still works in Windows 8, so that can be a good addition to add as a pinned taskbar item, which lets you search for system management features within the desktop, instead of reverting to metro start screen to search for something like "wifi settings" or whatever you might be trying to get into. Not something the masses need, but a power users good friend.

[brad jones]

Just read the following in the Windows Phone blog. Posting as it relates to the App Store discussion:

With Windows Phone 8, we’re delivering a product that is enterprise ready, and are specifically excited about a couple of new additions aimed at enterprise developers:
• Company Hub – This custom app framework can be used by enterprises to build a convenient one-stop shop for enterprise-specific apps and information. We’ll also be delivering templates and samples to help businesses create their own compelling Hub experiences.
• LOB app deployment – Many enterprises understandably want to keep their line-of-business (LOB) apps in-house, controlling how they get published and deployed. In Windows Phone 8, we support several new channels for deploying LOB apps to enterprise devices, including installing from a website, SharePoint, or email.

[brad jones]

Windows 8 fear and uncertainty kicks in

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57...News-Microsoft


Interesting article. Several complaints listed in the comments

[kleinma]

Eh, I have read Gabe's rant on Win8 and it is clear his issue is with the app store and that eating into steam profits. If that were not the case he would likely have nothing to say about Windows 8. He never elaborated on why he claimed it to be a disaster other than it is "less open" due to the app store and app approval process for WinRT based apps, which he would rather be selling through steam.

The same with the OEMs like acer. I don't tend to listen to the critics who have something to lose financially on Windows 8 coming out.

As for the rest of the people who have made complaints, they aren't all unfounded. I might be a little bit biased towards MS since my career revolves around their technologies, but that doesn't mean I think they can do no wrong. I am sure even at RTM there will be things that will come to light and need modification. However I still think MOST of the fud around Win8 is just that. fud. We are still seeing the "they took the desktop away", "they took the start menu away" complaints that are just getting old and tired and they were never really accurate to begin with.

[JuggaloBrotha]

I had a chance to fiddle with the Win8 beta on a co-workers VM yesterday and until I can afford to get dual touch screen monitors for my home PC, the Metro UI is utterly useless to me. So I played around with the classic desktop and there's no start menu. When I click 'Start' it brings up the Metro UI, which is useless to me on my desktops and laptops... no touch screens.

Other than that, as long as real games can still run on it (instead of those tile based and/or touch screen games like Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies) I'll have no quarries if the start menu is included in the final release. If it's not, I'll just stick with Win7 until they do or I'll leave the Windows OS once Win7 no longer suits my needs.

[brad jones]

...brings up the Metro UI, which is useless to me on my desktops and laptops... no touch screens.

My intent was not to try to counter complaints in this thread, but I did want to comment on the above statement as it is pretty strong.

It is interesting that you see Metro as useless without touch. Have you tried using your mouse? I have found that as I learn the mouse controls to the Metro interface, it has become much less "useless" and at times can be preferred over the desktop for some tasks.

I think the one of the biggest issues with Metro is actually a little thing -- there are no indicators as to how to use the mouse to do things. There is nothing indicating that there are things you can do on the left, right and other locations of the screen. Once you learn the secret handshakes, err mouse controls, I believe the level of uselessness will decrease.....

Brad!
(I use Win 8 on a notebook without touch)

[kleinma]

The other issue I believe is that it tends to run like crap in a VM. It is not fluid and the mouse stuff can be touchy. I ran it on VirtualBox and the UI experience was way more painful than when I installed it on bare metal.

I also use Win8 on my non touch laptop, and on a non touch desktop (my primary dev box is still win7 for now though) and I find the start screen to work well with no touch interface. It does help to know a few winkey commands, like q (search), i (settings), d (desktop)

[JuggaloBrotha]

My intent was not to try to counter complaints in this thread, but I did want to comment on the above statement as it is pretty strong.

It is interesting that you see Metro as useless without touch. Have you tried using your mouse? I have found that as I learn the mouse controls to the Metro interface, it has become much less "useless" and at times can be preferred over the desktop for some tasks.

I think the one of the biggest issues with Metro is actually a little thing -- there are no indicators as to how to use the mouse to do things. There is nothing indicating that there are things you can do on the left, right and other locations of the screen. Once you learn the secret handshakes, err mouse controls, I believe the level of uselessness will decrease.....

Brad!
(I use Win 8 on a notebook without touch)

No worries Brad, it may have seemed that I was ranting when I really wasn't.

Since posting that, I have had a chance to use Metro a little bit more, but the mouse gestures isn't very smooth, though as Matt has pointed out he has trouble with the moue gestures in a VM too & I've been using Win8 in VM Ware player because I don't have a spare, modern, computer to install it directly on, unless it can run on a single core 1 GHz system but event Win7 wouldn't install on that comp.

In short, without it working smoothly in a VM I doubt I'll ever like it enough to install on an actual computer, I use the VM's to judge how well something works before using on an actual system.
That being said, I still don't see the point in the Windows Menu not existing on the desktop-only side. What I really mean is why turn off Metro to use just the desktop, just to have to go back to Metro to open a desktop app, all that back and forth becomes really annoying after a days use. If I had any metro apps (sorry, I just dont see VS 2008 & 2010 as well as Office 2003 & 2010 ever being able to run as a metro tile) I would rather just have a real Windows Menu rather than a bunch of Metro tiles being my "shortcuts". It's frankly really bad UI design.

[kleinma]

I don't typically go back into the start screen to run a desktop program. The 10 or so programs I use on a regular basis are pinned to my taskbar, and launched from there without going back into start. I do this on Windows 7 as well. I NEVER go into my start menu in Windows 7 unless

1) I am doing a search
2) I am opening a rarely used app
3) I am shutting down the computer

In metro search works the exact same way, but yes it does bring you into the start screen, but I actually like that, as the results can be layed out better and you can see more of them. Shutting down is IMO more steps than it used to be from a start menu standpoint. (You can hit winkey + I from anywhere and select shutdown though). However I just made sure that in power options, pressing the power button on my PC does a shutdown, so I don't need to actually go click something in a menu.

Oh, and it isn't called Metro anymore as of yesterday (due to a company named Metro in Germany) Not sure what the final name will be now.

[JuggaloBrotha]

I don't typically go back into the start screen to run a desktop program. The 10 or so programs I use on a regular basis are pinned to my taskbar, and launched from there without going back into start. I do this on Windows 7 as well. I NEVER go into my start menu in Windows 7 unless

1) I am doing a search
2) I am opening a rarely used app
3) I am shutting down the computer

In metro search works the exact same way, but yes it does bring you into the start screen, but I actually like that, as the results can be layed out better and you can see more of them. Shutting down is IMO more steps than it used to be from a start menu standpoint. (You can hit winkey + I from anywhere and select shutdown though). However I just made sure that in power options, pressing the power button on my PC does a shutdown, so I don't need to actually go click something in a menu.

Oh, and it isn't called Metro anymore as of yesterday (due to a company named Metro in Germany) Not sure what the final name will be now.

I've got the 15 most used programs pinned to my win7 taskbar already, but there's another 20 programs that I use semi-regularly pinned to my win7 windows menu, which is why I would really like to see a regular windows menu added to win8's desktop side.

I haven't used the windows menu to shut down my computers since the early XP days. My home desktop keyboard as a "shut down windows" soft button and my laptops have always been configured to shut down windows via the power button. Though Win7 adding the "shutdown" right there in the bottom right with no annoying confirmation was a good improvement for when I'm using someone else's computer.

[kleinma]

Considering you have 35 programs you tend to use regularly or somewhat regularly, I would think the start screen to be a welcome improvement because of the way you can group and categorize shortcuts to desktop apps in the metro screen. I would think that would make it even easier to access and find which program you need.

[JuggaloBrotha]

Considering you have 35 programs you tend to use regularly or somewhat regularly, I would think the start screen to be a welcome improvement because of the way you can group and categorize shortcuts to desktop apps in the metro screen. I would think that would make it even easier to access and find which program you need.

I haven't installed it on a pc I regularly use so it might be an improvement, but right now it's extremely quick, easy, & doesn't take a lot of clicks or use hardly any screen space to pick the program from a list.

If the Metro tiles let me press a couple of keyboard keys to run a program like the windows menu does then I'd still be all for it.

[public]

thanx for more information