[RESOLVED] My Windows 8.1 woes continue... but it's logitechs fault

[RhinoBull]

Windows 8 has been plenty stable from day 1. As for millions suffering, I think you're mistaking PC users with starving Africans. While not perfect, Windows 8 is quite usable. If you don't like the interface then that's fine but your determination that nothing will ever change your mind doesn't make in unusable. I've been using it from day 1 without any real issue. The one thing that I've found to be a genuine annoyance when working with mouse and keyboard is shutting down or restarting. They've addressed that somewhat in Windows 8.1 and look to be going further in Update 1, but oh the suffering in the meantime!

You keep saying "I, I, I..." but we are talking about general audience with different technical expertise and user experience. Let them decide what they actually like and want.

And btw, Update1 will be iteration #3.

[jmcilhinney]

You keep saying "I, I, I..." but we are talking about general audience with different technical expertise and user experience. Let them decide what they actually like and want.

When it comes to stability, it's got nothing to do with me. As for usability, I have said here and elsewhere many times that I have no issue with individuals not liking the Modern UI. What I do have issue with is the logic, or rather lack of it, that some people use to justify that dislike and condemn Windows 8.x, in many cases without even having used it themselves. Your not liking the interface and it's not being usable are two very different things.

And btw, Update1 will be iteration #3.

And Windows 8 was iteration #1 and it was quite usable as it was.

[Shaggy Hiker]

On the other hand, we've seen it all before. Vista wasn't the buggy turd that it was made out to be. It made some things awkward for people, and the drivers weren't all there when it shipped, but the OS itself was stable. People objected more to it being a bit too secure, but they didn't tend to complain about stability. Nonetheless, Vista has to be considered a failure simply because the perception unquestionably exists that it was a failure. It wasn't a failure because it didn't work, it was a failure because people didn't like it.

Windows 8.x is almost certainly going to suffer the same fate. The masses of bloggers are against it, and many have been since before it arrived. At this point, I don't think the perception can be changed. First impressions tend to linger longer than a dead skunk under the porch at the beginning of summer. That's unfortunate. The ultimate goal that MS was striving for with Windows 8 is the right one. There were some mistakes in the implementation, and the details of Modern apps are certainly one of them (or several, I'm just not sure what to do with the tense in that sentence). The basic idea is one that should probably be embraced: We are headed towards a day where your desktop and your mobile are one and the same. You plug into a docking station when you are at a place with multiple screens, keyboards, mice, and so forth. When you hit the road, you pluck the computer from the cradle and you're off. For this to work, a tablet interface is the way to go. In fact, tablet interfaces on many systems make more sense than conventional interfaces. We just aren't quite there with hardware.

Still, the OS has to preceed the hardware. Hardware without a means to interface with it doesn't happen. It's nothing but an expensive lump of modern art. The OS has to be there to make the hardware come alive. With the Surface Pro, MS is getting it right. Using the Surface Pro with Windows 7 would be kind of silly. All you'd have is a full computer with a tiny little screen and not a single concession to the utility of that screen. With Windows 8 and the Modern apps, MS moved towards an OS that makes sense on a piece of hardware that can be fully portable and fully tied down. Since most people don't have the right hardware, they are a bit baffled by using an OS designed for a mobile/stationary device on a stationary-only device. That will change.

Google is doing the same thing with Android. They did a few things better and a few things worse. MS made some mistakes. Everybody grows. I am optimistic about where this is going.

[jmcilhinney]

On the other hand, we've seen it all before. Vista wasn't the buggy turd that it was made out to be. It made some things awkward for people, and the drivers weren't all there when it shipped, but the OS itself was stable. People objected more to it being a bit too secure, but they didn't tend to complain about stability. Nonetheless, Vista has to be considered a failure simply because the perception unquestionably exists that it was a failure. It wasn't a failure because it didn't work, it was a failure because people didn't like it.

Windows 8.x is almost certainly going to suffer the same fate. The masses of bloggers are against it, and many have been since before it arrived. At this point, I don't think the perception can be changed. First impressions tend to linger longer than a dead skunk under the porch at the beginning of summer. That's unfortunate. The ultimate goal that MS was striving for with Windows 8 is the right one. There were some mistakes in the implementation, and the details of Modern apps are certainly one of them (or several, I'm just not sure what to do with the tense in that sentence). The basic idea is one that should probably be embraced: We are headed towards a day where your desktop and your mobile are one and the same. You plug into a docking station when you are at a place with multiple screens, keyboards, mice, and so forth. When you hit the road, you pluck the computer from the cradle and you're off. For this to work, a tablet interface is the way to go. In fact, tablet interfaces on many systems make more sense than conventional interfaces. We just aren't quite there with hardware.

Still, the OS has to preceed the hardware. Hardware without a means to interface with it doesn't happen. It's nothing but an expensive lump of modern art. The OS has to be there to make the hardware come alive. With the Surface Pro, MS is getting it right. Using the Surface Pro with Windows 7 would be kind of silly. All you'd have is a full computer with a tiny little screen and not a single concession to the utility of that screen. With Windows 8 and the Modern apps, MS moved towards an OS that makes sense on a piece of hardware that can be fully portable and fully tied down. Since most people don't have the right hardware, they are a bit baffled by using an OS designed for a mobile/stationary device on a stationary-only device. That will change.

Google is doing the same thing with Android. They did a few things better and a few things worse. MS made some mistakes. Everybody grows. I am optimistic about where this is going.

Well said. A lot of the people who criticise Windows 8 make no attempt to understand at all the reasons for its existence. The way some people describe it, you'd think that Microsoft had created Windows 8 just to make their lives more difficult. While desktop computing is not dead, there's no doubt that we are in the midst of a massive shift towards mobile computing. Microsoft have no choice but to join that shift or risk becoming irrelevant. As such, they had to create an OS that was suitable for use on mobile devices. They'd already received plenty of criticism for using Windows 7 on touchscreen devices so something new was required to alleviate that criticism and, indeed, to make Windows-based touchscreen devices usable.

Many say that Microsoft should have created a touch-specific OS and left desktop Windows alone. Well, they actually did create a touch-specific OS: Windows RT. How well was that received? If Windows RT had been released without Windows 8 then it would already be dead. The main reason for that would have been lack of app support. The Windows Store still lags behind The Apple App Store and Google Play but is growing all the time and that is because of Windows 8. Microsoft really had no choice but to use their dominant position on the desktop to drive adoption of their mobile platform.

Where Microsoft possibly and probably made their mistake was in underestimating the backlash from desktop users to being forced to use a paradigm specifically designed for touchscreen devices. There's no doubt that they could have included a Start Menu and the like as options in Windows 8. Removing them was certainly not done because it was considered to aid desktop users. Microsoft took a calculated risk though. If allowed to ignore the new features of Windows 8, many people would. Those new features would then get little exposure and uptake of Microsoft's mobile platform would suffer.

That risk seems not to have paid dividends, at least in the short term. As Microsoft make changes in effort to restore equilibrium though, it may well do in the longer term. The people complaining about Windows 8 want to use Windows and will do so again when what they perceive to be its issues have been resolved. What those people fail to realise though, is that had they had their way and those original changes not been made then Microsoft and Windows may have soon disappeared altogether. I'm no Microsoft fanboy but I know what side my bread is buttered on. Microsoft's continued success is certainly in my best interests. Sure, I can learn to develop with other tools and for other platforms if I need to but I'd prefer to have to if you don't mind.

[RhinoBull]

And Windows 8 was iteration #1 and it was quite usable as it was.

And so was Win 95, NT 3.5, Vista...

[sapator]

Here in Greece we called windows Vista Windows "Svista" , svista in Greek means erase them. Anyhow, i usual tend to get it right with the OS'es. I used W95(skipped W3.1 although a tech guy was keep shoving it to my 386 PC), W98, skipped millennium(thank god), Used XP, skipped Vista(thank god), Used W7, skipping W8 with passion and i think we are going for W9 to see what M$ will make.Also we can safely say that W8 is dead, right? I mean W8.1 is here so noone has a reason to install W8. So let's see how W8 did on sales.And yes they overtook Vista,yoo-hoo!
http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-adopt...od-7000018847/
Also i really don't give a dime if they are trying to mix desktop and mobile and whatever. If it ain't working on sales, they can even fix the OS so it can make you fresh coffee and shove food out of the cd drive, they OS will be dead(ok if they make it serve coffee then maybe I'll install it.Real coffee though,(picturing users here trying to find a coffee - PC :P ).
Bottom line, until absolutely need my mobile to act like a PC and the opposite, if fine, thanks(my opinion).
P.S. if mobiles overcome desktop, are we to assume that we are going to program VS in a mobile? I wonder how would i design a web site in a mobile....Hmmm.

[jmcilhinney]

Also we can safely say that W8 is dead, right? I mean W8.1 is here so noone has a reason to install W8.

That's like saying that Windows XP was dead when Windows XP SP2 was released. Windows 8.1 is hardly a new OS despite the numbering. The changes in XP SP2 were actually probably greater than those in Windows 8.1. The increment in the version number was really just to make people who don't know any better think it was a new version so as to evaluate it with an open mind. Judging from your response, they succeeding in the first case at least.

if mobiles overcome desktop, are we to assume that we are going to program VS in a mobile? I wonder how would i design a web site in a mobile....Hmmm.

That's another ignorant comment. Did you really think about that one at all? How do we create applications for mobile devices and the web now? On a desktop. Just because mobile devices may outsell desktop devices doesn't mean that desktop devices won't exist. That said, several people have already said in this very thread that they are doing development on a Surface Pro 2, which is ostensibly a mobile device. It's actually more of a hybrid that wouldn't actually exist without the dual nature of Windows 8. I guess if you're determined not to understand then you won't.

[sapator]

I was joking about the mobile to desktop but i didn't specify that, so you can bash me, :P
About 8.1 . I believe they wanted to get rid of the W8 fiasco in a nice way so they made the 8.1 . There is no Windows XP1 or XPP or whatever. If they wanted a service pack the it would have been W8 SP1. I believe they are running like chickens in M$ right now.I'm willing to bet that a new OS will be release in a year or so.W8 is over, if we can understand that then we can move on.

[jmcilhinney]

W8 is over, if we can understand that then we can move on.

As I said, Microsoft have apparently succeeded in their aim to convince those who don't know any better that Windows 8 is behind us. If Windows 8 had been well received then what we now call Windows 8.1 would have just been Windows 8 Update 1. Microsoft wanted dissociate with the name Windows 8 though, and you have apparently swallowed it. This is all irrelevant though, because they can call any product whatever they like. Entity Framework went from version 1 straight to version 4. The fact is that Windows 8.1 is just Windows 8 with a few improvements that Microsoft wanted and few changes that they felt they needed to appease some unhappy desktop users. If you want to believe that Windows 8 is dead then by all means do so and, given your animosity towards it, Microsoft would be quite happy for you to do so. They would like you to move on but, despite your insistence to the contrary, I'm guessing that you're judging Windows 8.1 based on your opinion of Windows 8.

[sapator]

You are correct to assume that i am judging W8.1 based on my opinion of W8 but you said that they were just a few improvements so i don't think that i am way off.
Anyhow time will tell what will happen and time runs fast on computers.

[RhinoBull]

As I said, Microsoft have apparently succeeded in their aim to convince those who don't know any better that Windows 8 is behind us. If Windows 8 had been well received then what we now call Windows 8.1 would have just been Windows 8 Update 1. Microsoft wanted dissociate with the name Windows 8 though, and you have apparently swallowed it. This is all irrelevant though, because they can call any product whatever they like. Entity Framework went from version 1 straight to version 4. The fact is that Windows 8.1 is just Windows 8 with a few improvements that Microsoft wanted and few changes that they felt they needed to appease some unhappy desktop users. If you want to believe that Windows 8 is dead then by all means do so and, given your animosity towards it, Microsoft would be quite happy for you to do so. They would like you to move on but, despite your insistence to the contrary, I'm guessing that you're judging Windows 8.1 based on your opinion of Windows 8.

W8.1 is heavily based on W8 with few twists so how is it going to make any difference remains a mystery...
You like it and it's obvious but vast majority don't and that's is a very bad sign for any vendor even as giant as MS.
W8 was a fiasco and really don't see W8.1 doing any better. Sorry pal but you have face the reality (finally).
I love MS products which (like many said before) put food on my table but the problem is they changed direction so drastically many users/developers/admins had to move on to use something else (java, osx, linux etc...).
Milllions of businesses still suffer from VB6 not being managed, new Office interface (ribbons, etc) drove millions nuts and cost millions upon millions to various businesses across the globe to train their employees. The list can go on and on...
We can argue whether or not metro style is "modern" but the bottom line is MS used to be very consistent in their product line but they are no longer. If you don't see this then you must be living in your very own world...

[FunkyDexter]

I'm not sure the costs or the negative reaction are as great as you imply, rhino. I think the negative reaction largeley comes from bloggers and is somewhat exagerated to shift copy. And I think the costs are probably pretty negligible, businesses will simply delay upgrading untit the next iteration. And I certainly don't see developers abandoning .Net in floods. Win 8.* has undoubtedly attracted more criticism that 7 or XP but I don't see it as game breaking for MS.

I do agree with you that MS used to be consistent in it's product lines but you highlighted yourself times in the past when they made a radical shift. The biggest, to my mind, was VB6 to .Net which certainly made alot of us uncomfortable. But MS survived it and I'd say their developer base actually probably grew in the long run (just my impression, I have no figures at all to back that up). Certainly .Net is more respected (or should I say less derided) by programmers from other environments than VB6 ever was. From time to time a radical shift becomes neccessary and MS has to make it if they want to remain competitive. I think the rise of mobile has created one of those times and MS have reacted. I wish they'd given us a bit more hand-holding but I don't think they coull have avoided the shift itself.

I've certainly got some gripes with it myself but they are just gripes. I don't see it as broken or a death knell for windows, just occasionally unfamiliar and annoying.

That said, I've finally reached a point of frustration with this pox ridden mouse where I've decided to roll back to 8. The thing is, I strongly suspect that this will not result in the mouse (which was bought after I upgraded) magically working. I'm pretty sure I'm going through this exercise only to remove an excuse that Logitech support are hiding behind, thus forcing them to engage with me and I'll probably be re-upgrading in a week or so's time.

Have I mentioned how much I chuffing HATE logitech right now?

[Shaggy Hiker]

You should beware of pox-ridden mice. Didn't something like that bring on the black plague?

The mistake that I believe was made with Win8 was the way that the Modern apps were so locked down. Anybody writing Line of Business apps is pretty throroughly shut out of that market. It will kind of work for some folks in big organizations, but it doesn't work for the majority of LOB writers, and that's a real shame. In the future I believe we will achieve in a year or two, we will have mobile devices that will be our computers. Yes, you can run a desktop on a mobile device, but it is far from ideal. Give me VS, SQL Server Management Studio, Open Office, my own apps, and so forth as icons on the Start page and there would be very little reason to use the desktop while in mobile form. Fat fingers favor big icons. Always have, and always will. However, MS didn't go that way. The start page is for Modern Apps, and Modern is not particularly convenient for small business LOB, at the moment.

So, the fix I would like to see is one that largely gets rid of the desktop entirely. That might surprise some people, but the desktop has always been kind of stupid in a sense: Here's a big expanse of screen which gets covered up as soon as you launch a program, and when it isn't covered up, is only responsive in about 5% of the area. Heck, most people use their desktop to show pictures. It's a glorified slide show running in the background for most people. You can only meaningfully interact with the icons you've put on the desktop and the icons on the taskbar. The rest is all about not just showing nothing.

That's all fine for a mouse-driven system, because mice are precise. In a touch driven world, wasting all that glorious space just showing pictures is crazy. Make the icons bigger. Make them big enough to fill the screen. Give fingers a large target to hit, or at least a large enough target that they can reasonably hit them. If you do that, what part of the desktop is still useful? The taskbar is still useful for switching between running applications, but nothing else is.

This is what the start page almost achieved. The problem is that the user can't do all that much with the tiles that are on the screen. The things you CAN do are reasonable, but the really critical things, such as assigning them to erstwhile desktop apps, or even documents, isn't possible. Allow that and anybody who uses something like a Surface, but sticks with the desktop, is making their lives worse.

[RobDog888]

Shaggy, your comments on the desktop are quite spot on. I would also say that the Desktop is a "desktop". Your physical desk gets cluttered with piles of papers and things to do. If its like mine then it gets piles of junk obscuring any visibility of the actual desk top. Windows desktop is similar. We add shortcut icons all over the place so it goes from being a shortcut to a hunt to find one icon among 100+. Showing a picture on your desktop background is indeed pointless as it usually never is visible when you are working on your computer. So its become a resurrection of the all mighty screen saver of the past? Also when you run your apps like you say they cover up your desktop so any background is not visible nor are the shortcuts.

Now we are able to pin shortcuts to the taskbar. Users will overload the taskbar and use it as the desktop but it will be visible when we run most apps.

Bring in windows 8.x modern ui and its tiles. More useful as tiles are live. But again its going to be covered up when you run an actual app. Is the new start screen just the classic desktop on steroids? Perhaps and perhaps our mobile devices are mirroring this too.

A desktop is a start screen is a home page etc. Isn't it all just about getting to where we want to go today?

[FunkyDexter]

mice are precise

Pfft, speak for yourself.

[RobDog888]

Hey FD is that a hamster in your avatar or is it a mouse? That would funny if it is a mouse considering this thread.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I thought it might be a lop-eared rabbit.

[szlamany]

Not for nothing - but I have to say that it always impresses me how a topic that involves "changes to accepted methods" draws such a raucous debate. Thing is this thread is about a mouse problem - a driver issue - whatever...

But since it also relates to some other hot topic - some du jour issue - the "why are you taking my blankie away" folk go postal!

Aren't we as professional developers supposed to embrace change? Change is my existence - I rock change

That and the fact that all our users are going to be working through their own Windows 8 issues - don't we have to champion it?

I just helped a school district through a difficult conversion. At the start we were all coached by the business manager to "support" and be "positive" - not engage in negative tear downs. They serve little purpose. Goal is to find a better solution - not sure how that is accomplished by poking holes in something.

I would rather discuss what the Win 8 efforts by MS are trying to achieve - even if it doesn't benefit my current world - and see how close they came to those goals. Empathize and relate - it's a better way.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I give away change. Change weighs too much to carry around.

Wouldn't a negative tear down be a build up?

[RobDog888]

I heard Obasama say all through his campaign "Vote for me and you will get change" but if we all knew he was going to be giving us actual change (coin) we would have opted to retain our hard earned dollars.

Yea you cant change/fix something if you dont know how it works and what the problem is.

[FunkyDexter]

Hey FD is that a hamster in your avatar or is it a mouse?

I think it's a guinea pig but I'm not sure. I just came across it on t'internet one day and thought it looked kinda sage.

Yea you cant change/fix something if you dont know how it works and what the problem is.

Yeah, you can. I've got a hammer at home that'll fix anything.

[smendoza]

You should beware of pox-ridden mice. Didn't something like that bring on the black plague?

The mistake that I believe was made with Win8 was the way that the Modern apps were so locked down. Anybody writing Line of Business apps is pretty throroughly shut out of that market. It will kind of work for some folks in big organizations, but it doesn't work for the majority of LOB writers, and that's a real shame. In the future I believe we will achieve in a year or two, we will have mobile devices that will be our computers. Yes, you can run a desktop on a mobile device, but it is far from ideal. Give me VS, SQL Server Management Studio, Open Office, my own apps, and so forth as icons on the Start page and there would be very little reason to use the desktop while in mobile form. Fat fingers favor big icons. Always have, and always will. However, MS didn't go that way. The start page is for Modern Apps, and Modern is not particularly convenient for small business LOB, at the moment.

So, the fix I would like to see is one that largely gets rid of the desktop entirely. That might surprise some people, but the desktop has always been kind of stupid in a sense: Here's a big expanse of screen which gets covered up as soon as you launch a program, and when it isn't covered up, is only responsive in about 5% of the area. Heck, most people use their desktop to show pictures. It's a glorified slide show running in the background for most people. You can only meaningfully interact with the icons you've put on the desktop and the icons on the taskbar. The rest is all about not just showing nothing.

That's all fine for a mouse-driven system, because mice are precise. In a touch driven world, wasting all that glorious space just showing pictures is crazy. Make the icons bigger. Make them big enough to fill the screen. Give fingers a large target to hit, or at least a large enough target that they can reasonably hit them. If you do that, what part of the desktop is still useful? The taskbar is still useful for switching between running applications, but nothing else is.

This is what the start page almost achieved. The problem is that the user can't do all that much with the tiles that are on the screen. The things you CAN do are reasonable, but the really critical things, such as assigning them to erstwhile desktop apps, or even documents, isn't possible. Allow that and anybody who uses something like a Surface, but sticks with the desktop, is making their lives worse.

So what about people how use their pcs for online gaming. I'm not talking about playing solitaire, I mean MMO's, FPS games? Those would be kind of hard to do on a touch screen.

[smendoza]

You should beware of pox-ridden mice. Didn't something like that bring on the black plague?

The mistake that I believe was made with Win8 was the way that the Modern apps were so locked down. Anybody writing Line of Business apps is pretty throroughly shut out of that market. It will kind of work for some folks in big organizations, but it doesn't work for the majority of LOB writers, and that's a real shame. In the future I believe we will achieve in a year or two, we will have mobile devices that will be our computers. Yes, you can run a desktop on a mobile device, but it is far from ideal. Give me VS, SQL Server Management Studio, Open Office, my own apps, and so forth as icons on the Start page and there would be very little reason to use the desktop while in mobile form. Fat fingers favor big icons. Always have, and always will. However, MS didn't go that way. The start page is for Modern Apps, and Modern is not particularly convenient for small business LOB, at the moment.

So, the fix I would like to see is one that largely gets rid of the desktop entirely. That might surprise some people, but the desktop has always been kind of stupid in a sense: Here's a big expanse of screen which gets covered up as soon as you launch a program, and when it isn't covered up, is only responsive in about 5% of the area. Heck, most people use their desktop to show pictures. It's a glorified slide show running in the background for most people. You can only meaningfully interact with the icons you've put on the desktop and the icons on the taskbar. The rest is all about not just showing nothing.

That's all fine for a mouse-driven system, because mice are precise. In a touch driven world, wasting all that glorious space just showing pictures is crazy. Make the icons bigger. Make them big enough to fill the screen. Give fingers a large target to hit, or at least a large enough target that they can reasonably hit them. If you do that, what part of the desktop is still useful? The taskbar is still useful for switching between running applications, but nothing else is.

This is what the start page almost achieved. The problem is that the user can't do all that much with the tiles that are on the screen. The things you CAN do are reasonable, but the really critical things, such as assigning them to erstwhile desktop apps, or even documents, isn't possible. Allow that and anybody who uses something like a Surface, but sticks with the desktop, is making their lives worse.

So what about people how use their pcs for online gaming. I'm not talking about playing solitaire, I mean MMO's and FPS games? Those would be kind of hard to do on a touch screen.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Quite so. Pretty doggone hard to program on a Surface, too (or 2), unless you have a real keyboard. That's quite irrelevant to my point, though. When you are gaming, the game occupies the entire screen, so the desktop isn't available at all. Do you really care whether the desktop is a bunch of tiles, a bunch of icons, or just a pretty picture when you are in a game that covers the whole screen? Probably not.

Gaming is an interesting area because of the video cards available today. Will we EVER get to the point where a mobile device has that kind of graphics power? It's hard to say that it can't happen, but half the size of top-of-the-line video cards these days is the cooling system. So, if they are generating that much heat, it seems unlikely that they will be reduced in size to where they fit in a tablet any time soon. Therefore, I think there will always be a role for a tower: Holding big-arse graphics cards.

Aside from that, my point was that we are moving towards a world where you have only one computer for work and mobile. When at the office, you plug it into a docking station, which gives you video (possibly those big-arse graphics cards), a keyboard, big screens, and a real mouse. When you leave that station, you unplug the system and it becomes a touch-screen tablet. So why worry about games? The mobile device will always lack a full-size keyboard, a real mouse, and a large video display, even if it got the graphics capabilities to play good video games. Anytime you want to play one of those games, you are going to have to hook up external hardware just to make it possible. That's a constraint of geometry, not of the OS, and it has nothing to do with the desktop at all.

When you are truly mobile, and have nothing but the screen on the device and whatever cheezy keyboard you have available, it is possible that playing a game would be too painful to want to bother with. On the other hand, if all you EVER use a computer for is gaming, then you will NEVER use the computer as a mobile device. If you do, occasionally, use the computer as a mobile device, then you'd want an OS that works well as a mobile device. Win8 isn't quite there, but it is getting there.

Still, this has nothing to do with touch vs alternatives, nor did any part of the post you quoted. The point is that to get to a flexible world we need an OS that will work equally well either tethered to the hardware you need to play games, or as a mobile device. For such a system, a tile based OS such as Win8 is the only way to go. The failure is that we can't put anything we want on the tiles. Specifically, we can't hook desktop apps to the tiles. If we could, then there would never be a need to go to the desktop. As it is, nobody uses a command line to launch games (except JMC). Everybody clicks on an icon, and then the game takes up the whole screen and you can't see the desktop (or even the taskbar for most games). Do you really care whether the icon you click is on the desktop, or a tile? Can you really tell the difference? However, if you are mobile, then you certainly can tell the difference because tiles are easy to click and taskbar icons are too small.

So the approach with Win8 would work well whether tethered or mobile and the desktop only approach works only when tethered. That was my point.

Besides, games more closely resemble Modern apps than desktop apps, so they are a more reasonable fit for Win8 to begin with. After all, a game takes over the whole screen, tends to run exclusively, and hides the taskbar. That's the description of a Modern app. The only difference is that you are launching from a small icon, whereas a Modern app would launch from a large icon. Big deal.

[FunkyDexter]

I think I broadly agree with Shaggy's "Dockable" view of the future but I think it's only an itermediate step. I think there'll come a time when we find ways of making the peripherals truly portable too. Whether that means your screen will be a holographic display that can float in space or ultra thin and foldable so you can keep it in your wallet I really don't know but there'll come a time when even the docking becomes unnecessary. I further predict that, when that time comes, I still won't have a working mouse.

[smendoza]

Interesting thought on the dock-able solution that would be pretty cool. LIke FD said, hopefully it wont break the bank. I would hope it will give you the flexibility to upgrade certain components as needed unlike tablets and cell phones today.

[RobDog888]

You can already go to Office Depot and buy one of those holographic keyboards. Now just have to wait for a holographic mouse lol

[Shaggy Hiker]

Interesting thought on the dock-able solution that would be pretty cool. LIke FD said, hopefully it wont break the bank. I would hope it will give you the flexibility to upgrade certain components as needed unlike tablets and cell phones today.

It most certainly WILL break the bank if you are on the bleeding edge. That's the way it has always been. I never buy the best graphics card. The one that is two generations back is VASTLY better than what I am upgrading from, and the price point is right. Furthermore, I know that within a year, the top of the line will be in the bargain bin. Graphics cards have been advancing at a crazy pace for about two decades now.

Furthermore, with the Surface 2 Pro, the dock-able solution is here for many applications, but it's too expensive and the next generation will be much better. So, we are still in the break-the-bank phase, but things will improve.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that I'd try Skyrim on my Surface.

[szlamany]

@shaggy - I got a Bluetooth mouse for my S2P - what are you using? I also have the keyboard with the real functional keys - spent 5 hours in a meeting today. Able to read emails - browse the web - even logmein to my workstation in the office (tiny font at that point - but useable!

[Shaggy Hiker]

When you mention the keyboard with the real functional keys, do you mean the Type Cover 2? That's what I am using. Got a deal on it, too, as it was an out-of-box item with no flaws.

At this point, I have no external mouse. I might go that route, because I really hate touchpads, but my goal with a mobile device is not to lard it up with more things to lose. I'm not sure that a mouse would be consistent with that goal.

[Niya]

Wow lots of drama here with the start menu. Recently I had an experience with Win8 where someone asked me how to shut down the computer. A child, who's daddy had just bought a PC from us and my father felt he should put Win8 instead of Win7 like I would have done. It took me a whole 5 minutes to figure out how to shut down Win8. This is what I used the start menu for. I also pin certain apps and folders to it when I didn't want to pin to the taskbar which brings me to another point, the desktop. Took me like a minute to find out how to get the desktop. I really am not feeling Win8. Win7 for me all the way.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It took you a minute to find a tile with a big "DESKTOP" on it?

How were you at finding Waldo?

[Niya]

Keep in mind that I hadn't use Win8 before, at least not after booting it. I toyed around with it before after my father had the desktop open so I had no idea how to use the Metro interface.

[szlamany]

When you mention the keyboard with the real functional keys, do you mean the Type Cover 2? That's what I am using. Got a deal on it, too, as it was an out-of-box item with no flaws.

At this point, I have no external mouse. I might go that route, because I really hate touchpads, but my goal with a mobile device is not to lard it up with more things to lose. I'm not sure that a mouse would be consistent with that goal.

Yup - the type cover

I bring the mouse along and only use it if I'm doing a lot of clicking and not just typing...

Do you find that you are using the touch screen as well - for like scrolling through web pages or word doc pages?

I've gotten very comfortable squishing and expanding the screen...

[Shaggy Hiker]

Truth be told, I haven't used the Surface all that much, yet. I've been really plodding along at getting software installed. There turned out to be lots of complications, vacations, considerations, and skiing since I bought the thing. The skiing means that I lose 3-4 days out of the typical week (I'm not home, or too tired to do anything other than sleep). The vacation meant that I was away for about a week. On top of that, I took an inordinate amount of time getting the software I wanted installed. I got VS2010 installed right quick, then took an absurd length of time getting SQL Server Managment Studio installed. Then ended up going around and around about what I wanted to do with word processing. In the end, I went with Open Office, as it looks like it will do all that I want and avoids some sticky issues at work.

I hope to finish the setup this weekend, and actually put the device to real use. Thus far, I'm still figurin out how I will primarily use it. I have a program that is all drag and drop, but it may well behave oddly on a tablet, so I may be tinkering with that for a time, which would mean a combination of touch and keyboard. Another issue I will have to resolve is that there are some VS projects that I need to sync back and forth between the surface and another computer.

My real goal with the surface was a computer to take on a very long bike ride this summer, so I'm already looking into solar charging systems. My other uses will be interesting.

[szlamany]

I've got VS 2012 - and I've got full blown SQL installed (that was a pain) - and now just installed "real" IIS.

I need to demo a web app I am creating on a Samsung Galaxy tablet (7-inch) - so I'm going to grab a cheap wireless router and be able to host a "wireless" web site - out on port 80 to the router. The Samsung will just connect to the router and it can see port 80 and I've got a totally portable demo setup. All wireless (except for the AC powering the router). I've already tested this with the wireless router in my office - worked like a charm! Some of it is HIPAA data so I have to be careful with it...

You got free SkyDrive or whatever they call it - right? Can't you sync with that?

I use LOGMEIN - just bought the real paid product so I could use the FOLDER sync options that it has. I don't mind managing my own sync manually - this device really serves a kind of specific purpose since I develop on a traditional tower.

[dilettante]

Things might change now that they've dragged Bill back in to help turn the ship upright again:

Gates Spends Entire First Day Back in Office Trying to Install Windows 8.1

Maybe he'll take a look at the .Net travesty next. Anders may be back on a diet of sardines on crackers again before he knows what hit him.

[szlamany]

Eating your own dog food is part of properly managing a project - he should suffer with Win 8.1 (just like the rest of us). Installs are a major pain on this Surface - which I partially blame on hardware (thus drivers really I guess) and development tools just not being ready (dependencies or just poor setup utilities).

[Shaggy Hiker]

What is the .Net travesty? Does it have to do with the fact that it has already outlasted previous versions of VB?

[szlamany]

Yeah - I don't get that either - maybe I wasn't VB6 for long enough. Prior to 10 years ago I had a 25 year career developing app's for big iron.

In VB6 the easy code was easy code - but if something needed to be special all of a sudden you were sub-classing. You were lucky if all the API-functionality you needed was already wrapped up in some library - but none of those libraries seemed all that consistent to me.

But again - I only had a short decade with VB6.

When I saw .Net - I saw lots of libraries that exposed all kinds of low-level capabilities.

And all served up in an almost militaristically consistent set of methods and properties - all burned write into the basic syntax and the IDE.

How can you complain about that?

I am able to write much more production code much faster since I started with .Net.