Which direction will Windows go? Or which do you want?

Rather than co-opting the GIVES UP thread further, I thought I'd ask, "Which direction do you think Windows will go from here?"

And perhaps the more pertinent, "Which direction do you WANT Windows to go from here?"

I want the OS to remain as quick-loading as Win8 has done. (I'm rather stunned that so many old machines are so much faster because of Win8's handling of start-up procedures. "Why wasn't this done 10 years earlier?!!")

I want UI portability.

If users love the Start Screen, being on-line all the time, love being tracked by MS WinStore Apps, let 'em install that.

If they only use the Desktop Programs, let 'em use that.

If there are other UIs, fine - let us download and install those.

To some degree, the various START MENU 3rd parties offer some of that except all of those depend on the traditional Classic Registry & Start Menu systems that Windows still has built-in. It's all there, still. Microsoft just refused to 'turn it on' for us. They let 3rd-parties do it.

Which is an interesting strategy IF you believe Microsoft was going to maintain this vast skeletal structure forever and ever AND wouldn't reassert their versions OR cripple those add-on's.

I continue to see a huge need for UIs to give users back the individual choices on screen elements, like Windows has traditionally done (and Win 8.x still has in their registry), but Ballmer refused to allow this one simple screen:
http://www.nhs.uk/accessibilityhelp/images/Changing-colours-in-Windows-7-img-3.jpg

 

I'd like to see one unified UI, not two pasted together.

I would rather use not start page or menu at all. Give me something like Alfred on OS X and I will be happy.

I know one way we will not see it go is the way of a Linux kernel. No successful closed-source consumer OS has made that move, and I doubt MS will be the first to try it. There is little reason to do it, and the NT kernel is very robust.

 

This "services you do (or not) need" is a great subject because there are virtually no "implication" discussions in the Services Manager blurbs. There should be.

"If you select DISABLE, then the following services are affected BUT you save X resources HERE".

It has to be tough for an OS programmer to predict what hardware is installed, what software will be installed. I can understand how the always-on-line pipe-dream of a WinStore might churn fantasies of solving All Issues All The Time. I keep wanting to slap those faces back to Planet Earth, though, and remind them that those OS programmers need to visit more than 2 or 3 users in their daily lives. "Go out and see what REAL users are doing to make money with their computers."

And to streamline the start-up, well, then I think we're all volunteering to be cookie-ID'd to death with that always-on connection into Ballmer2's wallet.

I just don't want Ballmer to insist on loading up HIS fonts. I have never ONCE demanded he install any of MINE!

Individual Screen Colors are important because I see users struggle in so many different lighting conditions and tablet users might be particularly sensitive to wanting to tweak one or two screen-elements' options depending on their choice of lunch seating - inside, outside, underwater, in an avalanche, etc.

Then again, tablet uses aren't as vast as Desktop Uses can be. "I'm only listening to or viewing contents - I'm not typing, I'm not shuffling thru referencing pages, assembling links, writing formulas, creating margins for later printing, etc."

I think Metro's big weakness remains based on the All Programs Issue. Desktop Users can have dozens (or sadly even hundreds) of frequently used programs. Scrolling endlessly across Metro Pages instead of clicking a Menu Button, then a Sub Menu to find the ONE they need at this moment shows the time-wasting demands that Metro inflicts on Desktops.

However, there's no reason that Metro isn't good for the small screen, limited use tablet-Smartphone world.

We've had dual interfaces 'forever' in Windows. The DOS prompt vs. Win 3. The Classic vs Aero. Windows Users have been built with 2 interfaces available. I don't see any need for Microsoft to dismiss this 'ability' of juggling and selecting a user's preference - I just don't want them to pretend they know the Only Good One when obviously they have incredibly misjudged the Metro Impact on their productive money-making customers.

I do like the Linux world's concept of the portable UI. All of the Start-Menu Replacements are much like that - they're all exploiting the still-available Start Menu Registry & File Structure that Win8 continues to use from Win95 and onward. If only Ballmer hadn't suggested this might soon disappear... fortunately, he's gone before that Damaclesean sword dropped. But it's still up there... dangling...

 

One part I love about Windows 8.1:

Winkey+q. Just type in app name and it populates and I run it. So much faster than using the start page.

It is how I use OS X too. I hit option+ space, bring up alfred and start typing the name.

 

Oh, don't get me started on keystroke shortcuts...

This results in me accusing Win8 schizophrenia. "Wait - what keystrokes? This is marketed as a touch-screen system!" I mean, without a keyboard, how does anyone quickly 'type' keystroke-combos?

And there's the inevitable ballyhoo of "Easy SEARCH". Really? Try searching for "Shortcut Keys" or "Keystroke Combos" to have an easy, on-screen guide to learn all 218 of those. DOES ANYONE KNOW HALF?!! NO.

How many WinProgs do you know by their EXE name? Two dozen? Four dozen? What about programmers who have four editors for 12 languages and multiple toolkits? AND then need to do COMPILEs for multiple platforms?

Anyone want to try to memorize HALF of those EXE names?

All of these 'shortcuts' are great for those advocating "Use your computer less and less, accomplish less and less, and therefore memorize less and less."

That IS the apparent target goal. "Less and Less." And...

"Send us more and more New Money."

Grrr

Honestly, how difficult would it have been to have ONE meeting in Ballmer's office and say, "OK, create a 3-col screen of all keyboard shortcuts, and put them in the HELP system for easy Search abilities"?

 

(Oops, pardon the rant against Win8x schiozphrenia there. I should focus on Next Systems...)

Like, "IF your OS wants to trumpet Keystroke Combos, then it's HELP system should display those EASILY, READILY. Where's that screen-corner or swiping maneauver to accomplish it?"

Wanna have a HELP system for a touch-screen? Then let me make a Question Mark swirl and have THAT be recognized as a CALL out to the Help System.

 

You don't need to know exe names to use search. Just a general name.

Inter... Will bring up anything starting with that and IE will likely be the first hit.

 

Of course, EDIT and PROG (which requires 4 keystrokes after getting into the SEARCH screen's tapping) produce listings that might require pages of scrolling thru.

Oops! Tapped on the wrong one? Then start all over again! Oops - selected the one without all the right Switches? Start again...

Geez, a single click on a Menu Start, a single click on the user's created Programming or Editors submenu, and then select from the list. Two keystrokes and a sub-menu to read for the third click. Yeah... that's SOOOO difficult-! No wonder Ballmer-Sinofsky had to replace it!!

 

Personally I think the current paradigm is just as broken as the start menu.

Start page removes your current window focus and well, leaves it. The start menu covers what you are working on and requires you to use your mouse to be very usable.

Win+Q slides out from the side and does real time searching. It is a ton more efficient. No mouse clicks required, no touching required, no leaving your current screen required.

I use OS X the same way. It is a ton more efficient than launchpad or finder.

 

I bet I can open any program faster than someone who relies on start page or menu.

Winkey+Q, start typing int

Bam open IE by hitting Enter.

Metro: Assuming you have it as a shortcut, you click start and then click shortcut after looking on the page for it. You left your current view to do all of this.

Start menu is much of the same thing.

 

I'm just not so presumptive as to believe only one user exists in the world, or that all users have only the very limited productive uses of their computers.

 

Nor am I.


Hence I said 'I think'.

There is no reason why tapping a couple of letters should be any more difficult than using a mouse or touch.

An OS should enhance productivity, not get in the way. Windows 7 and 8.x both get in the way as they are. It should not take an advanced user to figure out how to make the OS not get in the way.

Apple figured this out a long time ago.

 

Take a look at these examples:

https://mega.co.nz/#!91A2jCBB!CX7jXbkj5BWOSRO-hHPhfxLXBYCCKUlz5ZBm4lHmQAg

Granted, I was slightly slower due to trying to find the applications on the screen in launchpad and finder (a typical activity for those that use start menu or the start page). One of them, eclipse, wasn't in launchpad, so i had to literally traverse two areas to launch all my apps. When I did it via Alfred, I never left my current location. Windows 8.1 search works mostly the same.


You can equate Finder to Start Menu, Launchpad to Windows 8 Start, and Alfred to Windows search.

19 seconds using Alfred.
43 seconds using Launchpad.
49 seconds using Finder.


Apps launched:

Chrome
Outlook
Eclipse
Excel
Word


19 seconds using a search method! That includes typing time! Do I type fast? Not really. Its just a matter of it being a real time search.

 

I would like to see honest full factory restore partitions that can be accessed at startup in addition the reset and repair function in Windows 8.

Why? I have run into virus and malware infections that block the both from running. This, and I've run into a few PCs with UFEI that (if infected) will not allow a switch to allow booting from a CD/DVD drive. I posted this in the Malware Forum a few months ago; unfortunately there seems to be no work-around.

 

The UEFI is read only though (unless being flashed); that should only be an issue for software interfaces with UEFI. If you go through the UEFI utility before the OS loads, it shouldn't be blocked by malware. Unless somehow that malware is below an OS level.

 

I would like some basics.
1) A thorough non indexed search, check out some of the LAN file finders, they do not index. They are fast, they are easy to use.
2) get ALL parts of each program in its own directory. This used to be standard, now we have crap all over the place. More than a path in the registry is just poor programming, why look through everyone's preferences for each program every time?
3) Stay out of the BIOS. Keeping the BIOS secure is a top priority for me and that means the OS should not be able to edit it in any way. I can get into the BIOS and update from a USB easily enough. Anything easier is prone to abuse.
4) Start testing the UI/OS for speed, any time spent in the OS is a dead loss, applications are where we make money.
5) Stop blaming the user, we are not the ones that traded security for convenience and easy surveillance.

 

DavidGP, my reference to MS touting touch comes from the first week of Ballmer's cheerleading Win8's triumphant appearance. It was, as he called it, "the biggest advance".

I remember thinking, "Isn't that what Wiley Coyote saying just moments before he stepped off that cliff?"

http://chuckjonesgallery.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b5599f970c01157023856e970b-320wi

DOA, the "program file in same place" versus today's scattered parts started when Win98/2000 prog's sometimes could use different versions of the same DLL. Microsoft's idea was that programmers would follow their MS Bible and use Common Files or Shared Files and save disk space.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft couldn't even agree on EITHER of those two folder names - so we immediately had both Common Files and Shared Files scattered all over everywhere. And that was JUST for Word vs. Excel groups, too! (These variations still remain, I see. I heard Bill Gates say that "Office 95 would be a big step forward in unifying toolbars, and all underlying services. I see Office 2013 still can't accomplish this. If Gates EVER looks like he's turning blue, this MIGHT be a reason!)

 

Realtime searching will require indexing. There is just no way around that, even with SSDs.

 

Of all the virus-attacked PCs I've dealt with, all of them have suffered from hijacker attacks, and just about all of those are attacks on the same set of undisciplined, anti-learning users. "I saw the warning saying my computer was infected, so I instantly clicked on the FREE - RESCUE ME button! It said it was FREE!!"

Oh gag. (Where oh where is that sign saying, "Jump off the cliff FOR FREE!!")

I know those hijacker attacks prey on someone dulled out after a day of monotonous keyboarding, inured from so many extraneous pop-ups - "What's one more?" I know that's food and fodder for them.

Tuff Luv has been my (sadly) best answer as I've delayed The Fix for a day or two, maybe even three, hoping they'll finally have their minds opened after so many more hours of frustration. I've even dragged them to my shop and made them sat thru OS reloads and reinstalls (which takes ten hours, but they barely sit thru the first one before becoming too impatient for everyone else around them).

Of course, I've dragged out an image file and rebuilt their system on another HDD to swap out, but I am NOT going to make "repairs" easy and quick for the refusals-to-learn.

 

But the earlier comment about securing the BIOS from updates or OS-effects. I do love having a currently-running OS-BIOS-Update feature.

That certainly is nice, especially in this day when just about no PCs in the last 3-4 years have floppy drives, and only since 2011 have we seen widespread motherboard use of USB-as-Boot-Device capabilities.

The hardware makers need to ensure a USB Boot Device is easy to use, and is not the sole domain of those "comfortable tinkering with BIOS Setups".

But that "F12 - specify Boot Device" would do it.

I'm not sure how I can tell a BIOS that it's C: Drive Boot Device's OS is "invalid" for updates, however, whereas the BIOS will recognize a USB Boot Device's OS as "proper". This is still a domain that H G Wells is well-suited.

If I'd hard-code an "invalid to update" command for "Drive C", then viruses could search for other drives OR map out a pathway to be Drive X: and attack from there.

But "safeguard BIOS" should be one of the goals, yes, absolutely.

I'd still like to see the Desktop or any UI separated from the OS, and that certainly means browsers are NOT part of the OS either. I understand the lust for "always on as part of the base-level support", but that just isn't correct. Maybe it will be in a generation, or 10 years when every rural locale has been optic-fibre'd.

 

I'd also love the return to the NO BLEEPIN' SYNONYMS for real folder names. I understand the LIBRARY concept of Grouping Real Folders, but I have always hated the "MY" UserID synonym when "DATA" would have been such a nice and even DOS-friendly name.