Windows 8 Media Center Will Be An Add-On - Page 10

That's the wrong thing to compare it to. The Start Menu was always major fail because it's difficult to navigate and goes away when you select something from it, forcing you to do the navigation all over again the next time. I rejected it the first time I saw it circa 1995 and used alternative program launchers until Windows 7 came along. The proper comparison is with the Windows 7 taskbar, for the reasons I gave in my last message.

Sure sounds neat. So what do you take out with you? You take the whole thing, and it's bulkier than a tablet, and there will be a tension as you use it between wanting to turn it into a tablet and then wanting to use it with keyboard. Once the novelty of the transformer capability wears off, I'm not convinced it will continue to be perceived as all that valuable. From what I've seen so far, touch apps don't work well in non-touch mode and vice versa, and I don't see how that's going to be reconciled. I think the end result will be a mediocre compromise, and after the novelty of this latest greatest device wears off, people will use it mainly one way or the other, and return to dedicated devices for future purchases.

Uh, what's the problem then?




Well if that's how you feel, keep using Windows 7 plus an iPad. Hell, switch to OS X if the Dock-type launcher is what you love so much.

Seriously though, I would just bring the slate/Windows 8 tablet itself most of the time, and maybe my folding Bluetooth keyboard from back in the Palm OS days. I have an HP Touchpad running ICS, and I've used an iPad before... and I can't ever bring only it with me. Sure, most of the time it can do what I need to do, but there's a million different occasions where I need a full desktop experience... sometimes only for a short time, but it's still important nonetheless.

In other words, the comparison isn't bringing a Windows 8 slate versus only an iPad, but bringing a Windows 8 slate versus an iPad and computer. The iPad and ICS tablets are great at what they do, but there's too much they don't do. That's why I personally need something that always has the option to use my full-blown Windows programs.

Still, I can't deny that there's something to be said about the simplicity of using something like an iPad most of the time. Metro at the very least matches that simplicity, and hopefully the apps will be there at launch.

Again, the idea sounds good, but I think it's highly likely that true convertibles end up a tiny, expensive, ultimately irrelevant niche.

Besides throwing out so many UI good design principles, the problems with Metro and its apps are that Microsoft is forcing it down the throats of the preview users, it is devoting all its resources to its latest "bet the company" strategy, and at least some other companies will follow them in this foolish pursuit, the end result being a massive waste of time and energy, with normal programs receiving less attention during this time.

Metro _is_ the Start Menu.

It solves a lot of important problems, including both the 10 foot viiew and tablets.

And you don't have to use it. I expect MS will make that still more clear in the next release.

The Windows Key toggles between the two.

And like the Start Menu before it, it's a crappy interface, and I won't be using it.


The 10' problem has already been solved in programs like Media Center and XBMC. For things like music, I keep the TV off and use my iPod Touch's 1' interface to control iTunes on my PC or stream from the Touch to my Apple TV, and I find it a lot better than any 10' interface. I really don't see how Metro and its apps instantly translate to 10' usability anyway, much less why this would be a widely desirable feature for anything besides Media Center (or presentation) type programs, several of which are already available, the oldest dating back 10 years, I believe. And as for tablets being an "important problem", well, other companies have been pretty successful at it, while Microsoft was completely unsuccessful the first time they took a crack at the tablet PC 10 years ago.


Ideally, Metro will be like Media Center, something buried that most people encounter only by accident. But that's not going to happen. Microsoft is betting the company on trying to create a convergence between its PC dominance and mobile irrelevance, and I will be surprised if they back off in a significant way.

Loss of some features and capabilities isn't my only reason for giving the thumbs-down to Windows 8, but since that's what we're talking about, maybe this analogy will help:

I've expressed disappointment with the removal of some features and capabilities in Win8 relative to Win7. Your response was to minimize the significance of my concerns with the view that very few people would even notice that they weren't there anymore.

Now, at the same time you've expressed anger about the poor treatment Windows Media Center is getting from Microsoft. (And I sympathize!) But it's not hard to find folks who will pooh-pooh your position, with the "argument" that of all the people who use Windows, only a tiny fraction will even notice that WMC is gone. (In fact, Microsoft's own attitude is that so few people use WMC that it's OK to split it off the regular Windows installation.)

So, you stand in relation to those folks, in the same way that I stand in relation to you: an expression of dissatisfaction over the loss of features, met by more or less a "so what?" response.

As I said, I'm with you over what Microsoft has done with WMC. I hope that you will understand, in turn, where I am coming from. You don't have to agree with my concerns, just understand that some people do prefer having the features in question to not having them anymore.

And. Here. We. Go.

Microsoft pulling free development tools for Windows 8 desktop apps, only lets you ride the Metro for free (update: confirmed)

This is a very big deal IMO and speaks volumes about where MS is trying to take the PC.

I really don't think it says much at all. You want to use desktop mode? You can still use Visual Studio 2010 Express, or any number of other free programs to do so with.

All of Microsoft's time and effort are going towards Metro now. The new WinRT APIs are for Metro only, the Windows Store will be pretty much Metro only (you can have a link to a desktop app, but that's it), and development for Windows RT (aka the ARM version) will be Metro only. If they kept the desktop app compiler in, it'd be identical to the VS2010 version anyway. But yes, they want everyone to be using Metro. Is that really a big surprise to anyone? That's all they've said since Windows 8 was announced.

How long is using VS2010 going to be feasible? It's very obvious they want everyone using Metro the way they are corralling us all into it. This isn't anything temporary they are planning to walk back down the road, this is a power grab over content for the long term.

Is it too much to hope for an extender mode?


In otherwords since WMC has the ability to extend, but there currently is nothing but the 360 pretty much to extend to...seems like it wouldnt be that big of a deal to at least have some sort of extender mode on another pc if they are so adament about not sharing WMC resources between different pc's. It would be great to just use another cheap pc as an extender vs xbox, even if that meant setting WMC in some sort of extender mode which limits you in the same way as a propper extender does.

Don't hold your breath. No indication that MS are doing anything extra with MC in 8 (other than charging you for it now), so an extender mode is highly unlikely.

There's actually no reason why MS couldn't have done this quite easily in 7MC, but they want you to buy Xbox360's, so why bother.

From everything I've read, I don't think anyone questions where MS is trying to take things. I think we all get it - that the platform is shifting and that MS wants to be in the vanguard that gets us there. The thing that seems to be different is that the changes in the past have been somewhat transparent and gradual - including the shift from MS DOS to Windows - to the extent that you had time to simmer down and let the change take effect. In this case though, it feels like MS is almost dictating where things should go - through what feels to me like a knee jerk back end decision that it now has to create reasons to justify. From my view, it would be just as easy to leave Windows Media there as it is to take it out. It's not like it's new technology that still needs time on the bench. It's already there. So what I have to ask is - what's the rush? What would be the harm in leaving it loaded as an embedded windows option like all the others. If it is an idea whose time has come and gone, people just won't use it - It wouldn't be the first technology to languish long after it's prime - but people would still get utility out of it if they wanted it. As a windows option,a person could either load it or not load it - based on thier needs at the moment - and with no extra charge. And I would argue that this wouldn't slow down their energy toward Metro one bit.

I disagree that the shift from a command line interface to a gui interface was a gradual change. It was just as jarring as moving to metro. The only question is whether metro will cause a surge in happiness for the majority like the gui did (many gnashed there teeth but learned to accept and eventually like the gui) or fail and burn like BOB did.

As for removing Media Center, my only guess is that they want to reduce the bloat of Windows. If they kept in everything that only a sliver of the users actually use, we would need a BluRay to install Windows.

They took out WMC to push people towards the Xbox for their media center. Who needs OTA recording when you can stream all the content you want.*

*Live subscription required.

http://www.techspot.com/news/48794-m...r-devices.html

+∞

It's natural that people who like and are comfortable with what they are using now resist change. But you are absolutely correct. When we moved from DOS to Windows, those who had memorized all the commands they needed to know complained that MS was just dumbing things down and that the computer literate didn't need a GUI which would just get in the way, bog down their system, eat up disk space, and make things more difficult.

Yeah, right. Gee, I wish I could go back to command line computing, or maybe even punch cards and writing code for every simple task.

I knew people who insisted on using Worderfect compatibility mode in Office for years rather than simply taking a little time to use the new (and much better) interface.

I have no idea whether W8 will be well crafted and implemented or not, but this notion of "I don't want anything to change from what I have today" is both unrealistic and counterproductive to progress and improvement. The real question is how well it works.

The biggest problem over the past 20 years is that Intel's incredible rate of advancement in processors has allowed a lot of companies to simply write bloated, kluged, inefficient code because leaps in processing power and storage capacity covered it up. But MS has been far from the worst offender. Especially in both W2000 and W7 it wrote fast, efficient, stable code. It's going to take some time for people to get used to the new layout, and it's possible that the design is simply not very good, but that remains to be seen, and the reality is that it's going to become the standard regardless because in about six months most new home computers are going to come with W8 installed. It's not like people are going to start buying Macs in droves or buying new home pcs with Linux. (Besides, Apple is far more guilty of the "our way or the highway" approach than MS.)

As an aside, MS has already extended twice its planned date for ending support of XP, and it was only a few months ago when W7 finally overtook XP in the installed base. If we consider Vista essentially dead, I wonder whether MS is going to continue to support three live ongoing new-install OSs in XP, 7 and 8 simultaneously, or if XP will actually die, finally, soon.

It's not just a case of leaving MC in 8 because it doesn't really add much to the install (it doesn't though, on my system, then entire ehome folder is about 115MB, which is nothing really). MS want shot of MC, pure and simple, and this is the beginning of them ditching it on the PC platform.

Making it an optional 'cost' install on 8Pro will pretty much kill it overnight. Very clever of MS to do it like this, as they can't be accused of dropping it altogether. They'll come up with the line that 'only xxx people installed it from the App store in 8, and our customers have told us they don't want it', essentially meaning, it won't, in any way, shape or form, be in Windows 9.

MS see embedded MC and the Xbox as the way forward. They've given up with trying to persuade people to put a PC in their living room, no matter how good some cases can look.

When have MS ever cared about the minority! We pay for, use, and sing the praises of MC at AVS (as many other sites do), but don't count for squat on the MS bottom line.

By gradual I mean that it took several iterations of Windows before it became comfortable and acceptable - and mainstream. When it first same out, most pc users were complaining that MS was trying to turn PCs into Macs and back in those days, that just wasn't cool. So they wouldn't use it. I believe it was Windows 95 that finally planted Windows as the platform of the future. Of course by then we had AOL and the internet and I'm sure that helped. But there were 2 or 3 prior interations of it before that and each iteration made slight shifts and changes in the GUI to make it more user freindly and acceptable.

Early versions of Windows ran poorly and had few programs. PCs running Windows were hugely inferior to the Mac in those days. That's why Windows was unpopular. Excel was introduced in Windows 2, which gave it a small boost, but it was Windows 3 that really took off, and that was due to the increased base of software and technical improvements WRT multitasking, memory usage, driver support, etc. That would have been around 1990-1991 IIRC.

Which reflects that user interface and even features are not the biggest factors in switchovers. Software availability is probably the single biggest issue (and Word and Excel only arrived with Windows 2.0 in 1987). Plus, it is an extremely expensive and complicated undertaking for organizations to change over operating systems without disrupting the work of the entire organization, and in those days, moving up to a new operating system usually meant buying all new, more powerful, hardware, required extensive training for the entire workforce, and introduced widespread software incompatibilites. Which of course is also why until earlier this year XP was still the most widely used version of Windows even though 7 has been out for nearyly 3 years. People aren't clinging to XP becuase it's better or more stable or more secure or has a better GUI. It's because it is complex and expensive to change to a new OS, even if that new OS is better.

That any new OS gets phased in over time has little to do with the quality of the new choice.

+1 on that.

Interesting that you bring up Microsoft BOB. With every new GUI, there will always be (1) some people who hate it just because it's new (different! unfamiliar!), and (2) some people who love it just because it's new (different! cool!). Then there are those who will like it because the new way of doing things happens to work better for them; as well as those who dislike it because the new way of doing things happens to work worse for them.

I was among those who saw Windows 3.11 and thought that it was harder to use than MS-DOS. I never did completely understand how 3.11 worked; when I minimized a window it would seem to disappear into thin air, and I would only re-discover a minimized window when I closed or minimized the current window.

On the other hand, when Windows 95/98 came around with Windows Explorer and the taskbar that always shows what's currently open, it worked so much better for me than 3.11 that I never looked back. So loving or hating a new GUI isn't necessarily an automatic reaction. It's lazy thinking to start accusing those who dislike Metro (for example) of being closed-minded: things are often (maybe even usually) more complicated than that.

I wonder how many people back when Microsoft BOB came on the scene, heaped sarcasm and ridicule on those who didn't like it ("you're just a hater," "you haven't tried it," "you're not open to new things," etc.). No doubt there were at least some people like that.

The difference is that, back then, BOB was an optional interface -- nobody had to use it lest they start becoming technologically incompatible. It was a supplement to Windows. Whereas now Microsoft is baking Metro into the new version of its fundamental operating system, and down the road those who find it an esthetic horror and/or who find it harder to use than the current GUI will have little choice but to labor under it, or switch over to Linux or an Apple product.

Imagine if the next OS after Windows 95 had been, not Windows 98, but... BOB. Pre-installed into every new Windows PC, it would have been than much harder to reject in the marketplace. And yet it's still possible, as we saw with Vista.

As they say, time will tell.

As a MC user, I'm disappointed that they are moving away from it. But at the same time, i cant ignore the fact that I really am in a minority of users. Im not going to get angry to the point of abandoning their products due to dropping a low demand application.

Frankly, media center should have been a separate app from the beginning, give it a chance to evolve outside of windows itself. So at least in that area, I agree with them moving it to a paid add-on. the problem is that now we are all use to it being free and built into windows, so the idea of paying for the same app is a non starter.

What this means for me as a htpc owner is that I lean on Win 7 (on my htpc) until there is a good alternative on Win 8 or subsequent versions of windows.







But isn't it also a catch-22? If you don't bake the new interface into windows at a deep level and you don't make it visible in some way to all windows users, most users will ignore it. What happened to MC? It is largely ignored.

Whether its Metro or some other gui change, you wont really know if people like it or not unless they are exposed to it. I agree that its a fine line and MS has to try and balance out what power users want/expect with whatever changes they make. I don't know if Win 8 will hit the right balance, but as a power user, I have to say that I don't feel like I have to live in Metro.

Another point I keep seeing made is that Metro is somehow the only interface in Win 8. I don't get how I can easily get to the desktop and stay in that environment and yet others seem to be stuck in Metro all the time. Whatever plans MS may have for the future, right now its clear that I can have the same desktop experience if I choose to with the only interaction with Metro would be the start screen. That's it. I don't see that as the same thing as making us live in the Metro environment.

But as you say, time will tell.

It is funny though that any time MS makes a drastic move, something beyond the slow evolution from one OS to the next, there is alot of heated discussion.

I agree this is the last time you will see WMC. I would guess with the next major release WMC will be history. Xbox is their home theatre media box not a PC.

As long as the guide is still supported (even at a nominal, say $20, annual fee) I really don't see a need to go to Win8 at all. I haven't beta tested it in the preview because I don't have time and my system works just fine already, so why muck it up? My opinion is that typically MS Windows is not truly stable until at least the first Service Pack is released, so why mess with previews?

I think you guys are forgetting that a major reason why development was very slow for WMC, was because it was tied to the base OS. They could only make major changes when the OS updated or had major releases. When the developers explained why they couldn't move so fast and add features the way that their competitors did, people kept asking why don't you remove it from the base OS and make it a separate app?

Well, now it is a separate app. The WMC developers now have the ability to update it as quickly as they want, and they have a revenue stream to justify updating it with new features.

If it dies, then it dies. But at least they were listening to their customers!

I hope you realize that was just an excuse and an artificial, completely self-imposed limitation, and it had nothing to do with Microsoft losing interest in developing Media Center. Media Center being "tied to the OS" impeded its development to the same extent that the development of Notepad was impeded for that non-reason.


LOL. There are no Media Center developers anymore, and Microsoft is continuing its long history of insulting Media Center users by splitting it off from the OS as a pay feature while making no improvements to it. Don't be a sucker. Just say no.

Sadly - I think you're right. There has always been plenty of room for improvement but MS never took the initiative to let WM or WMC step out as the vanguard players they could've been. Each upgrade of WM from the start has always been just enough to stay up with Real Audio to keep them in check - but no real leap forward that made you stand up and notice WM or WMC as anything extraordinary - not really. So I think that similar to the announcement that they are no longer going to host CES, MS feels like they have made their point for as long as making the point was relevant - and they are now simply moving on to something else. It's gutsy and bold - I both love it and I hate it - but I am intrigued.

If Microsoft were to update the app version of WMC, theoretically it should also work for Windows 7 users, meaning no new OS, just the newest version of WMC. Unless Windows 8 is a completely different architecture than 7, the component should be upgradable. This would be the only way I will believe Microsoft saying that WMC is worthwhile as an add-on.

I've been building PC's and installing OS's since Windows 98. XP simply cleaned up the UI's mechanics and made things more useful/logical than 98x. XP was evolutionary in that regard. I still prefer the XP UI more than the Vista/7 standard UI btw.

Anyway, I've installed and run Linux distro's as well. Other than being free, what's the point for J6P? I haven't delved into a Linux server yet, but likely will before long. As for drivers, well if more drivers are being written for Linux now, I think it speaks to the fact that so few official drivers have been written for Linux in the past. They have lots of catching up to do.

Hardware manufacturer's scoffed at Microsoft mostly because they couldn't continue writing sloppy-ass drivers. They hated the fact that Microsoft put the quietus on executing in protected kernel space. That cluster#*@$ stopped with XP going forward. Believe me, that represented one the single largest improvements between XP and it's antecedents. But that was an architectural improvement, not a UI improvement.

Linux and it's many flavors are making inroads into the consumer market, but the progress will continue very slowly. Linux has it's uses but everyday users will find little need for most of what the OS really offers.