windows 8 Microsoft Drops Aero from Windows 8

[Luis Mazza]

Mac OS X actually has very less color in its UI since early OS X. At least in Lion, all the main user folders have monochrome (or close ) icons. ;)

not sure if "metal" can be called monochrome compared to plain black and white and other variants. :)

[+Fahim S. MVC]

When there's no competition, it's easy to be successful. Just ask Intel.

Also it wasn't successful due to its UI, it was successful because the previous incarnations were god damn awful, unstable and bug ridden messes.

Really? WIndows 2000 (the codebase from which XP came) was solid. Windows 7 is widely regarded as being rock solid, yet it came from Vista (which in my experience was solid, but others beg to differ). People also seem to forget that XP was a flakey POS when it was released. And especially that the NT security model was a pain for people 'upgrading' from the 9x family of OS's.

Back on topic though - the 'glass' of Vista and 7 are the only themes that have been offered in Windows which I have not felt the need to change (through a patch or 3rd Party Software) beyond the options that Microsoft have offered out of box since I first started using Windows - I hope that this change is a worthwhile one, but I agree in that simulation of real world materials is becoming somewhat tired and we need a change.

Bold design decisions are often met with a fair amount of resistance and are a gamble - it takes balls bet the farm and to change things dramatically but more often than not, this level of 'thought leadership' is because the 'leaders' are way ahead of the game. There is no way we would love 7 the way we do if Microsoft hadn't taken the risk they took on Vista.

[Inactive]

The insults about XP's Fisher Price theme were and still are justified. That was the ugliest UI ever. However the key difference is that it was very simple to turn Luna off and the classic theme looked fine. You could even disable it during installation in the winnt.sif answer file. The last time I saw that ugly blue theme on my system was in 2002 when it first launched. With Windows 8 there is no such choice at the moment, not to mention that with Windows 7 there is no need for Windows 8 to even exist on the desktop. Yes I know there are some backend improvements but nothing worth "upgrading" to. Windows 8 is for people who want tablets. I think most desktop users will skip it.

[ArialBlue]

This looks wonderful.

Now that I look at this overemphasis on smooth corners, I do not like it, it looks bad now.

I can't really help but think about modern plastic furniture, toys, and such - all smooth edges so you, the idiot, would not be able to hurt yourself.

Windows 8 is different, it gives you actual corners - you hurt yourself -> your fault.

The rectangle is an easy shape to understand, it can be defined using two points.

It lacks the ambiguity of the rounded corner, the rounded tab, etc.

The colors are great too - simple emphasis on where what is.

I bet the GUI is faster now as well - gradients, glass blurring, and smooth corners are more expensive that filling in rectangles with solid colors.

The most important thing to realize is that with these changes Windows 8 will not look like a head on collision of two different GUI types - it looks way way better

[abecedarian paradoxious]

Aero will be gone in the "Release Preview" this is official from microsoft, the OP's screenshots are from what we will get in the RP which will be released the first week of June.

Neither the OP nor the source linked to says that.

So, your source?

[Kyang]

XP was panned as "Fisher price" because everything looked like cheap molded plastic, and the colors were looked ripped from a Fisher Price toy.

This new Win8 default theme still shows glass, and the windows are dark text on a light background. It follows the same design ethos as the current Zune desktop player.

One would be hard pressed to find anyone one criticizing the Zune software a fisher price.

So I think comments connecting XP's toy like appearance, and the Win8 desktop's minimalist appearance are not well supported.

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Just as intel does pay some sites to put AMD in dust. Yeah.... every corporation does it.

Your accusation that Dot Matrix is a paid MS plant is an ad hominem, and does not advance your position in any way, so why perpetuate it? Hypothetically, if another forum member told you that until you prove otherwise, they will assume you are a paid Apple shill, would you give fair consideration to anything else they had to say? That would be unlikely, right?

[abecedarian paradoxious]

When there's no competition, it's easy to be successful. Just ask Intel.

....

Intel had no competition? When?

Cyrix/IBM, AMD, VIA, ... remember Transmeta?... and others have competed with Intel.

Even Windows NT had support for Alpha, MIPS and IA-32 (aka x86), at its inception.

IA-64 (Itanium) is mostly dead in the water.

Yet Intel had no competition?

So, where did the now ubiquitous 64 bit extensions to x86 come from?

AMD

[ArialBlue]

With the impending fail-on-the-desktop known as windows 8, I would not be surprised at all.

Microsoft knows that 8 will succeed anyways based purely on the fact that OEM's will be pushing 8 onto everyone whether they want it or not, this will generate sales numbers for MS regardless if 8 is actually selling in the stores or not, much like vista did, even though vista was a complete and utter failure MS (and to some extent their fanboys) will always claim otherwise by clinging to those OEM sales numbers.

It will also succeed because it doesn't look like windows.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

With the impending fail-on-the-desktop known as windows 8, I would not be surprised at all.

Microsoft knows that 8 will succeed anyways based purely on the fact that OEM's will be pushing 8 onto everyone whether they want it or not, this will generate sales numbers for MS regardless if 8 is actually selling in the stores or not, much like vista did, even though vista was a complete and utter failure MS (and to some extent their fanboys) will always claim otherwise by clinging to those OEM sales numbers.

why you complain Vista was a failure is beyond me, sure it had some issues on release (mostly drivers and the fact that OEMs were putting it on dated hardware) but so did XP, and after SP1 Vista was a great OS. If anyone is to blame for Vista's bad rep it's the OEMs + where would 7 be without Vista's ideas?

[Order_66]

XP was panned as "Fisher price" because everything looked like cheap molded plastic, and the colors were looked ripped from a Fisher Price toy.

Yes but with XP the 'fisher price' look was easily turned off and could easily be made permanent, unlike metro, which is currently unable to be turned off, with metro, users will be forced into seeing this ugly abomination every time they boot their pc and will have no way of getting rid of it without resorting to third party programs.

[Order_66]

why you complain Vista was a failure is beyond me, sure it had some issues on release (mostly drivers and the fact that OEMs were putting it on dated hardware) but so did XP, and after SP1 Vista was a great OS. If anyone is to blame for Vista's bad rep it's the OEMs + where would 7 be without Vista's ideas?

Because vista was and still is a failure, one of the worst operating systems ever created by MS, funny thing is I love what vista brought to the table, especially the live wallpaper and gagets and the ability to customize and use the classic start menu, configuring the OS to the way "I" wanted it to look and work is something I really miss from vista.

[Dot Matrix]

Yes but with XP the 'fisher price' look was easily turned off and could easily be made permanent, unlike metro, which is currently unable to be turned off, with metro, users will be forced into seeing this ugly abomination every time they boot their pc and will have no way of getting rid of it without resorting to third party programs.

Another man's trash is another's treasure. Just because you hate it, doesn't means others will or have to.

[Arceles]

Because vista was and still is a failure, one of the worst operating systems ever created by MS, funny thing is I love what vista brought to the table, especially the live wallpaper and gagets and the ability to customize and use the classic start menu, configuring the OS to the way "I" wanted it to look and work is something I really miss from vista.

I really don't like windows 8, but Windows ME and Windows Vista were 2 oses that I really liked, Windows ME was ok... it didn't crashed on me except for the ms explorer. Windows Vista was slow, but back then with 1gb RAM I somehow managed it to make it faster, I really liked Aero also and the fact that it booted faster than my XP dual boot installation.

Edit: Dot Matrix our comments got cleaned, but the ad hominem doesn't go at the fact that you like windows 8 but instead at the fact that you put many posts trying to convince people that windows 8 is the true panacea for all of us when is no where near that.

[xendrome]

<<Topic Cleaned>> stick to it guys, please.

[Kyang]

Yes but with XP the 'fisher price' look was easily turned off and could easily be made permanent, unlike metro, which is currently unable to be turned off, with metro, users will be forced into seeing this ugly abomination every time they boot their pc and will have no way of getting rid of it without resorting to third party programs.

Specific comments that draw certain comparisons between XP and Win8's desktop can be discussed, but criticism that the new Start Screen is an ugly abomination isn't really debatable unless I know why you think it is ugly. The blog posts on BW8 showed that the composition of the start screen followed many guidelines used to organize information and graphics on publications and websites, many of which are received as quite beautiful.

But discussing the beauty or lack thereof, of the Start screen has been secondary to discussions on its efficiency.

BW8 blog posts have already responded to claims that it contains less information that the existing start menu. The workflow is going to be different, but if the desktop were fully customized with the desired apps pinned to the taskbar, then the only large difference remaining between the typical workflow on the Win7 desktop compared to the Win8 desktop would be the search interface.

[Dot Matrix]

Because vista was and still is a failure, one of the worst operating systems ever created by MS, funny thing is I love what vista brought to the table, especially the live wallpaper and gagets and the ability to customize and use the classic start menu, configuring the OS to the way "I" wanted it to look and work is something I really miss from vista.

And yet, people are on here clinging to it. Windows 7 is just Vista cleaned up.

[Kyang]

And yet, people are on here clinging to it. Windows 7 is just Vista cleaned up.

That clean-up is a critical difference. This along with the maturing hardware and driver support greatly improved consumer reception of Win7.

[Dot Matrix]

That clean-up is a critical difference. This along with the maturing hardware and driver support greatly improved consumer reception of Win7.

Not only that, but people chastised the Hell out of Vista's UI, yet gloated about it in Windows 7. People will eventually accept the new Metro Start Screen as well.

[TheLegendOfMart]

Not only that, but people chastised the Hell out of Vista's UI, yet gloated about it in Windows 7. People will eventually accept the new Metro Start Screen as well.

That doesn't mean its good, it just means that people don't have a choice and will have to make the best of it.

[Inactive]

That doesn't mean its good, it just means that people don't have a choice and will have to make the best of it.

We do have a choice though, Windows 7 for starters. It will be supported for a long time to come. After that there is OS X and Linux.

[Dot Matrix]

That doesn't mean its good, it just means that people don't have a choice and will have to make the best of it.

Is that why they're crying because it's going away now? :rolleyes:

[KillTheIrishman]

I'm going to say this again.

I DON'T USE A TABLET! I DON'T WANT A TABLET OS ON MY POWERFUL HOME COMPUTERS!

Why is it so god damned hard for you to get this through your god damned head. Jesus Christ.

Then stick with what u have. Simple. Leads me to believe that you are a teenie bopper who just doesn't get it.

[Highlander77]

So where is this theory that mouse is gone coming from? Mouse as a way of communicating with OS is not going anywhere especially not on Desktop and Laptops because there is no better, precise and faster way of clicking things on screen.

[MorganX]

snip

You are ridiculous.

[jakem1]

You are ridiculous.

A good point well made.