I think I'm starting to re-evaluate my opinion of Windows 8 slightly. I've been of the opinion that it will be great on tablets and such. (I have a WP7.5 phone and the UI is the best that I have seen on a phone, no kidding). But on Desktop I thought it was, whilst not a complete disaster, a significant step back. It annoyed me. Chief amongst annoyances was the need to action functionality from the screen edges / corners. I also had some serious concerns about multi-monitor set up and screen-hungry Metro Apps.
I don't know if anyone else has been reading this, but it's seriously well worth a read: very interesting to get the theories and ideas behind a lot of it.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/?Redirected=true
Scaling to different screens is an interesting read as is the Multi-monitor one. I'm working my way through some of the others. It's interesting to read some of the stats. 75% of new PC purchases are laptops. The huge majority of programs run on laptops spend their runtime maximised, seldom partially scaled. So maybe there is solid reasoning behind freeing up that extra little bit of screen along the bottom and the window border around the program. Now that I know what the multi-monitor options are actually going to be and how they'll work with Metro, I'm a lot less worried my dual-monitor (likely to be a three monitor set up later this year) Desktop will turned into a exercise in frustration.
But the article on the screen resolutions is really interesting because it touches on how Windows 8's restrictions, conditions and tools make things a whole lot more elegant for software developers.
Basically, reading these articles, I'm a lot more reassured that MS haven't gone completely insane. Which is good because I've really liked Windows 7 (still do) and don't want to have to quit Windows when that expires.
EDIT: I've also just discovered that a chkdisk operation on a disk with 100 million distinct files on it typically drops from taking 6 hours to complete to < 2 seconds. Okay, I don't have 100 million+ files on my system, but even so, I'm going to see a significant drop in the time an operation like this takes. It's basically going to be: "Checking. <blink> <blink> Done". And the volume can be online during repairs. I'm liking Windows 8 more and more.
I don't know if anyone else has been reading this, but it's seriously well worth a read: very interesting to get the theories and ideas behind a lot of it.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/?Redirected=true
Scaling to different screens is an interesting read as is the Multi-monitor one. I'm working my way through some of the others. It's interesting to read some of the stats. 75% of new PC purchases are laptops. The huge majority of programs run on laptops spend their runtime maximised, seldom partially scaled. So maybe there is solid reasoning behind freeing up that extra little bit of screen along the bottom and the window border around the program. Now that I know what the multi-monitor options are actually going to be and how they'll work with Metro, I'm a lot less worried my dual-monitor (likely to be a three monitor set up later this year) Desktop will turned into a exercise in frustration.
But the article on the screen resolutions is really interesting because it touches on how Windows 8's restrictions, conditions and tools make things a whole lot more elegant for software developers.
Basically, reading these articles, I'm a lot more reassured that MS haven't gone completely insane. Which is good because I've really liked Windows 7 (still do) and don't want to have to quit Windows when that expires.
EDIT: I've also just discovered that a chkdisk operation on a disk with 100 million distinct files on it typically drops from taking 6 hours to complete to < 2 seconds. Okay, I don't have 100 million+ files on my system, but even so, I'm going to see a significant drop in the time an operation like this takes. It's basically going to be: "Checking. <blink> <blink> Done". And the volume can be online during repairs. I'm liking Windows 8 more and more.
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