So I’ve been having a quick play with the Consumer Previews of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8; the latter appears to be especially impressive and there are lots of new features which the Server folks are going to love. I’m very happy with how accessible it is for a relative Server neophyte like me and I look forward to having more of a play.
But despite a couple of tweets from me declaring hatred of Linux, I suspect I’m not going to be replacing my ‘core’ home infrastructure with Server 8 anytime soon; I’ve got too much time invested in them at the moment. I will be watching Server 8’s progress with interest tho’.
This brings us on to Windows 8 desktop; the operating system feels snappy and like Server there are some good new features; I’ve not installed it on bare-metal yet but I must say that I find it pretty usable even on a fairly small VM but Redmond we have problem!
The Metro UI sucks on a desktop; you can’t just put a touch-UI on a desktop and hope that it works. When you first log onto Windows 8 and are faced with the Metro Start Screen; first reaction is probably, that looks quite nice which is rapidly replaced with this so doesn’t work with a keyboard and mouse, to that is a pile of crap on multiple hi-res displays. So dropping into Desktop mode is a must but removing the Start button from the Desktop was a mistake; fortunately Stardock have come to the rescue with Start8 which brings back a start button.
But if the Metro experience is going to be core to the Windows 8 product; perhaps there needs to be a better way and then I looked at my iPad and thought; Windows 8 is made for a second screen experience.
What we need is a way of displaying the Metro Start Screen on a tablet which we can have close to us and we can interact with by touch and not have to reach up to touch monitors which will be an ergonomic nightmare but a main screen display which is our working area and where we do our work.
If we are to move to a more touch-based UI across the board, we are going to need some rethinking about how we interact with systems when sitting at a desk; the desktop PC might go away with time but the desk-top is not going anywhere soon I suspect. Voice, gesture and gaze will all have a place to play but I think for the short term, some way of utilising a tablet as a second screen/input device could be a quick fix.
Or Microsoft could just realise that a tablet UI does not make a great desktop UI. Windows 9 perhaps?
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