Where did you hear that? This thread, for instance, seems to be full of people saying it cannot be done. Please post link to your info source.
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Windows 8 will fail?
- Thread starter Black Magic
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Where did you hear that? This thread, for instance, seems to be full of people saying it cannot be done. Please post link to your info source.
Desktop .EXEs most certainly CANNOT run under Windows RT.
You could recompile the source codefor a desktop application, get that signed, and provided you only used APIs present in Windows RT and get that to run (perhaps) but that's a far cry from running X86/X64 .EXE binaries to run.
You'd need to emulate an X86 processor to do that and all the wishful thinking in the world isn't going to get any current ARM core doing that at anything close to a rate that would make current X86 software even vaguely usable.
Oh, and registry hacks are not magic. The MOST they can do is enable/disable/reconfigure functionality that exists in the OS already (and that is using those registry entries to set its options) but for which there is no user-facing means to manipulate the configuration.
Have you tried any of this or are you guessing? Because i do know from playing with a W8 laptop today that you CAN change the UI back to Desktop mode as you have used on all other Windows OS's if you dont like the tiles.
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Right. Sorry for confusion. Yes it needs recompiling. However work on a discreet emulator is being done so it'll be a moot point that there's minimal app support for RT.
I may have asked this already in this or another thread, but how do you change the UI back to desktop mode? When I tried a Win8 preview, the tiles appeared every time you booted up, and also when you wanted to launch a new app that you hadn't yet pinned to the desktop taskbar. Is there a way around this in the final release version?
That's what I thought. But then, what does Vegastouch mean when he says "you CAN change the UI back to Desktop mode"? I know Win8 has a desktop mode, but in my experience, going into and out of desktop mode is dependent on what app you are running at that particular moment. It's not really a user choice -- user choice would be: "Oh, I want to go into desktop mode, so I'll click on this, and I'm in desktop mode and I don't have to see the tiles again until I want to." No, you have to deal with the tiles every so often. That, to me is not "changing the UI to desktop mode." You are just in desktop mode because you happen to be running an app that runs in that mode.
If you don't run metro apps, you only have to deal with the tiles about as often as you do the start menu. I know I'll only hit it up about 3-4 times a day at most, and only when I need to.
What are you running that keeps kicking you into it?
Right now, nothing, as I haven't gone back to it for a while.
But I remember, I installed the preview in a VM, then started playing around with the various system settings, and finding that some were in Metro and some were in the traditional UI, and you couldn't really do a lot without being switched from one mode to the other.
I understand that once I have everything set up and all my programs installed, then I won't have to go back and forth between the two UIs as often, but I was like, what's the point? What do I get on my desktop that I don't already have with Win7? And the answer seemed to be "Nothing worth the hassle."
You just touch a button on the screen and it flipped to desktop mode and the tiles went away and it had a regular desktop theme. The Best Buy salesman showed me that. He said you can put it in desktop mode if you prefer it to the tiles which i thought was a cool feature and will be a selling point for many who might not like change all at once.
He touched a button a couple of times but sorry, i dont have one so i cant direct you to the button since i dont have one in front of me.
Ah, so you didn't actually get to use it. Like I've been saying, when you actually try to do something, you keep getting flipped between the desktop and the tiles. To me, that's not really having choice between desktop and tiles, it's more like being at the mercy of the OS, which picks the mode you are in at any given time.
Right now, nothing, as I haven't gone back to it for a while.
But I remember, I installed the preview in a VM, then started playing around with the various system settings, and finding that some were in Metro and some were in the traditional UI, and you couldn't really do a lot without being switched from one mode to the other.
I understand that once I have everything set up and all my programs installed, then I won't have to go back and forth between the two UIs as often, but I was like, what's the point? What do I get on my desktop that I don't already have with Win7? And the answer seemed to be "Nothing worth the hassle."
It's more like everything has a metro equivalent, and how you access it depends on which you get. You go from the desktop, you get the old desktop app, the charms bar tends to prefer the metro equivalent.
Yeah, it can be a confusing as hell at first, but once you kinda get the hang of things, it's actually a little quicker than it used to be. Everything has its place, weird as it might seem at first glance. See, you have to quit thinking of the new start screen as "the other UI". You can access it and hit up your programs faster than you used to be able to (or at least I can), and you can pin more to it than you used to be able to. You have more at your fingertips, more easily accessed.
Plus, if you go down to the bottom left corner and rightclick, you get this...
...all the important Windows settings, now all in one easy to access place. This is all desktop right here. It doesn't take you to Metro at all.
Which kinda makes me think this is the worst problem with Windows 8. It isn't that it's bad for a desktop user. It's arguably slightly better and little more efficient (YMMV again). But it sure as hell doesn't go out of its way to show you that. You're a good example, because you've everything you want right there, not even a swipe and a click away, but you kept doing things the hard way cuz the alternative didn't make itself apparent.
I think that's what all the cool kids mean when they say discoverability is low.
Yes, exactly. That's a handy menu, but I never thought of right-clicking in that corner!
I did get the sense that Win8 was slightly faster and more stable than Win7, and I see what you mean about stop thinking about the tiles as the "other UI," but it's going to take a mental adjustment to get to that point. I think a good comparison is all the people complaining about Mission Control in Lion / Mountain Lion. I have no problems with that, because I never used the multi-desktop system in Snow Leopard, whatever it was called, but I totally symphasize with people who were used to the old interface not being able to get used to the new one. And I think that's how I feel about the tiles in Win8. In fact, I like the Windows Classic start menu from way back when, and I don't think I ever got used to anything else. Up to Vista, there were ways to revert to the Classic menu, and in Win7, I've been pretty much ignoring most of the Start Menu.
If I *had* to use Win8, I'd probably find a way to make it work for me, but I'm not going out of my way to upgrade to it!
Yeah.. i went by what they said but yes, using it may be another story. If you can use it like a desktop, that would be awesome. I would get used to the tiles but for some who dontlike change, it would be cool. I was going to say my Wife but she has a Windows phone so she would be ok with it.
It's not so much the tiles, as you keep flipping back between desktop and tiles. I think I'd be okay with something like Windows phone, where everything is tiles.
They way I see it, it's only 40 bucks, so...eh, might as well get it now while it's cheap.
It's like Technarchy said in the other thread, they went a little too far with keeping everything out of the way, which makes it feel like an easter egg hunt. But once you climb the learning curve and figure out where everything is and what does what, it's surprisingly smooth.
Tut tut Vegas Touch. You should not post something as definitive fact simply because a guy at Best Buy told you so
, when people here who have even running windows 8 for months have already explained the only way to use desktop mode solely is to install a third party start menu replacement hack.Originally in the earlier beta's & preview the old start menu was still buried within the system. Folks quickly realised this and posted command line / registry hack that would allow users to disable the metro start menu and use the older one meaning you literally could work like more traditional windows.
However Microsoft decided then to remove it (the old one) completely from the OS meaning that no longer was there a hack to use it instead of the metro one.
So even though there is a desktop mode the chances are you will still be flicking back and forth to metro start.
There are third party software solutions that add a new 'older style menu' to the desktop mode however.
The guy at Best Buy did give you information that was only half accurate, and this is a clear example of what we were saying on the windows 8 confusion thread. That staff in retail outlets will often give misleading or wrong info to consumers causing buyer confusion.
I actually just wish Microsoft had left the old style start menu as an option but do understand clearly they have invested the majority of their development into Metro and its apps, and are banking considerably in the Windows App Store being the real banker with windows 8 for ongoing revenue streams, and they of course want developer to create apps for it. Allowing consumers to bypas it completely is counter productive to the clear vision financially that Microsoft have for windows 8.
I've been using the final version of Windows 8 for a number of weeks, and can live with metro, my only ongoing criticism is that I still do not like the feel of using metro applications with a mouse or trackpad, as its clear they are designed with touch in mind.
I do have a concern that Metro start is not very appropriate for businesses / corporations and would have thought a revised start menu hybrid would have at least been included in Win 8 Enterprise version. But again this is not the case.
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I upgraded my main system to Windows 8 on Friday afternoon. It had been running Vista 64 for 5 years, the other two PC's in our house run Windows 7. I'd never been a big fan of Vista and for $40 it seemed like a good chance to upgrade.
General thoughts:
MS HAS to do a better job of helping people with the UI transition. It's just not intuitive for anybody who's used regular Windows (or iOS or other mainstream operating system.)
They give you the tiny breadcrumb that navigating to the corner will do something. Once you realize how universal that command is and what it does in each corner, things become a bit clearer.
It's disconcerting to lose most of your programs, trying to reinstall and set up new tiles..figuring out what tiles are available. It's a sloppy, messy conversion. It was a fun way to kill a few hours for me...but there is NO way I'd put this on my wife or kid's computer.
The App store is bare. I can see the potential...but it needs some time to mature.
The biggest question I have is if any company wants to drop this in an enterprise environment. It would literally grind work to a halt if some of my coworkers had to start figuring out this new system. You couldn't drop this on anyone's desktop without providing some deliberate upfront training. And even then, there will be a drop off in productivity as employees get used to it.
I can see a big push for an Enterprise version that works solely in the desktop mode.
I hated it the first hour. I was weary of it after 3. It's starting to grow on me a bit now. It was a bold move by Microsoft. Time will tell.
General thoughts:
MS HAS to do a better job of helping people with the UI transition. It's just not intuitive for anybody who's used regular Windows (or iOS or other mainstream operating system.)
They give you the tiny breadcrumb that navigating to the corner will do something. Once you realize how universal that command is and what it does in each corner, things become a bit clearer.
It's disconcerting to lose most of your programs, trying to reinstall and set up new tiles..figuring out what tiles are available. It's a sloppy, messy conversion. It was a fun way to kill a few hours for me...but there is NO way I'd put this on my wife or kid's computer.
The App store is bare. I can see the potential...but it needs some time to mature.
The biggest question I have is if any company wants to drop this in an enterprise environment. It would literally grind work to a halt if some of my coworkers had to start figuring out this new system. You couldn't drop this on anyone's desktop without providing some deliberate upfront training. And even then, there will be a drop off in productivity as employees get used to it.
I can see a big push for an Enterprise version that works solely in the desktop mode.
I hated it the first hour. I was weary of it after 3. It's starting to grow on me a bit now. It was a bold move by Microsoft. Time will tell.
Best Buy was certainly busy yesterday with people taking Windows 8 for spin.
How this translates to consumer sales remains to be seen.
My home PC died about 3 months ago and I've been too lazy to repair it. I've been using my work PC for...work; at home I've been rolling with my iPad, and iPhone only.
The iPad has worked well. Maybe too well. It's worked well enough for me not to bother rushing out to get a new PC, or Mac.
Windows 8 wont fail because Windows is essential to global computing.
How this translates to consumer sales remains to be seen.
My home PC died about 3 months ago and I've been too lazy to repair it. I've been using my work PC for...work; at home I've been rolling with my iPad, and iPhone only.
The iPad has worked well. Maybe too well. It's worked well enough for me not to bother rushing out to get a new PC, or Mac.
Windows 8 wont fail because Windows is essential to global computing.
Tut tut Vegas Touch. You should not post something as definitive fact simply because a guy at Best Buy told you so
Originally in the earlier beta's & preview the old start menu was still buried within the system. Folks quickly realised this and posted command line / registry hack that would allow users to disable the metro start menu and use the older one meaning you literally could work like more traditional windows.
However Microsoft decided then to remove it (the old one) completely from the OS meaning that no longer was there a hack to use it instead of the metro one.
So even though there is a desktop mode the chances are you will still be flicking back and forth to metro start.
There are third party software solutions that add a new 'older style menu' to the desktop mode however.
The guy at Best Buy did give you information that was only half accurate, and this is a clear example of what we were saying on the windows 8 confusion thread. That staff in retail outlets will often give misleading or wrong info to consumers causing buyer confusion.
I actually just wish Microsoft had left the old style start menu as an option but do understand clearly they have invested the majority of their development into Metro and its apps, and are banking considerably in the Windows App Store being the real banker with windows 8 for ongoing revenue streams, and they of course want developer to create apps for it. Allowing consumers to bypas it completely is counter productive to the clear vision financially that Microsoft have for windows 8.
I've been using the final version of Windows 8 for a number of weeks, and can live with metro, my only ongoing criticism is that I still do not like the feel of using metro applications with a mouse or trackpad, as its clear they are designed with touch in mind.
I do have a concern that Metro start is not very appropriate for businesses / corporations and would have thought a revised start menu hybrid would have at least been included in Win 8 Enterprise version. But again this is not the case.
He didnt just tell me so. He showed me and did it.Granted he didnt go to any apps in desktop mode so no i cant relate if it changes back. In anycase, i think i will adapt to W8 fairly easy when i get it. I aint scared....lol
Confusion? there was no confusion there. You decided to be patronising and arrogant and you were *wrong*.
Oh, and I think you'll find they don't need only "recompiling" they need to be ported.
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hmmm....
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Just like that huh?
XDA still managed to run a desktop app on RT after recompiling, though. If these guys here are so hell-bent on the contrary, then fine. I'm going to side with the guys at XDA about Windows-related things rather than believing *scoffs* MacRumors. It needs recompiling indeed and a signature. After these two things are made easy and smooth, RT won't have any issues after devs simply recompile their apps, as MS supplied invaluable tools for automated porting. Until then, or in case it never works out, there will be discreet emulators. Open-source apps like VLC are obviously first to get this treatment since the community can simply do it. It's all a simple recompile away for most programs, made especially easy on C++ programs.Confusion? there was no confusion there. You decided to be patronising and arrogant and you were *wrong*.
Oh, and I think you'll find they don't need only "recompiling" they need to be ported.
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hmmm....
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Just like that huh?
I know the concept of accepting the truth and changing opinions is foreign to you, being an Apple fan and all. It's a better route than lying to myself, no? Thanks for reviving an old argument for the purpose of a temporary ego boost, as opposed to actually arguing something. If you still think I'm wrong, go yell at the people on XDA on how they're wrong and how some server guy knows more than they do.
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Ive had Windows 8 since the Dev Preview months ago and have been running RTM for several weeks at least.
Its better than 7, but takes a quick getting used to if you want to use the new Metro/Microsoft UI side. The good news is you can pretty much always run it as an improved Windows 7 with things like the better Explorer, quick functions, better performance, better multi-monitor support, etc.
I will not be going back to Windows 7.
The true benefit of Windows 8 is it brings out the new touch based laptop, AIO, tablet, and convertible market by offering up the Microsoft Design portion of the OS. I checked out the Yoga 13 and the new touch ultrabooks and I really want one now, but Im not ready for an upgrade. There is something really nice about the multitasking on a touch enabled Win8 device. I showed my dad some laptops while I was home this weekend and he really liked the Yoga 13 and is getting it sometime this week to replace his old WinXP tablet for work probably. It was actually nicer than I expected; even my GF who came along, a huge Apple fan, thinks Microsoft's idea for computers is better than Apples for once.
So in summation, its like 7, but with some improvements and polishing and also offers up the Metro/Microsoft UI that can work with mouse, but really shines with touch. I still use the Metro apps with my laptop, but 90% of my time is on the desktop side.
If we gave Windows 7 a 7/10, Windows 8 is an 8/10 for desktop and a 9/10 for touch IMO.
In short: Great idea/concept, very poorly executed.
This could've been HUGE! Microsoft should've just called it "Windows" and that's it.
The Touch UI is not very good, not intuitive, side scrolling is very a very good way to scan for information.
Simple example, you need multiple clicks to start playing a song AND then multiple clicks to pause it.
As I said, the concept is really good, this type of a UI combination can downscale even to a phone... it's where the technology is headed anyway Desktops->Laptops->Tablets->Phones.
You could dock your phone and use the desktop, full OS Windows, then if you had to go somewhere, you could just pick up your phone and it'd switch to the mobile UI, with browser's open tabs, everything transferring over.
I want Apple to give this concept a shot, an OSX-iOS hybrid.