So I’m trying out Windows 8 (yes, it’s not released to the public, and yes I have it legally).
Dear God, what a mess this whole Metro/desktop thing is. Someone over at Microsoft must have split personality disorder or something. How in hell did they think that was a good idea??
Anyway, the OS does have some really nice improvements and it’s very responsive (except when it’s not… I get random freezes once in a while, apparently it’s something to do with my Intel SSD). And more importantly, after installing VS2010, and the June 2010 DirectX SDK, the new (and presumably old since I haven’t tried it yet) Gorgon works fine. What I knew, and was hoping I was wrong, is that they took out the D3DX library for the new DirectX, and as such things broke horribly under Gorgon because SharpDX uses the D3DX libraries to load/save textures. After installing the June 2010 DXSDK, everything worked again, so there’s that.
I really really really don’t like this metro thing. It’s just horrible with a mouse/keyboard and while I was ambivalent towards the Start Menu in previous versions, I really miss that I can’t group my applications (and I have a lot) under folders. This made everything really horrible to organize, especially with how obsessive I am about organization on my machine.
That said, the desktop is real nice. Love the new task manager, love the new copy/delete dialogs. I even like the new look they put in (they got rid of Aero, or probably more likely, the glass effect).
Sadly, I now have to figure out how in hell I’m going to make Gorgon work without relying on D3DX (yes, I know, I could keep with developing for the June 2010 SDK, but at some point you know they’re going to drop that). Apparently I can use WIC (Windows Imaging Component), but it looks pretty convoluted and I need something that’ll give me AnyCPU support.
All in all, the awfulness of Windows 8 outweighs its benefits in my opinion. Someone really needs to kick Ballmer (I blame him wholeheartedly for this mess) out of that company and install someone with a fucking clue (i.e. we don’t all use/want a tablet, nor do we all want to develop for them).
Anyway, I am not dropping support for Windows 7/Vista from Gorgon. So don’t ask about it.
That’s all for now. Gorgon is still being worked on, a little, here and there. It’ll be ready by 2213.
I have taken time to play around with it, I use it as my primary OS. I tried to find “My Documents” the other day so I could open an Excel spreadsheet. This is something I do on near daily basis and it was so simple with the Start Menu. Click on the Start button, click/hover over documents click document. Dead simple. Metro was, go to start screen, start typing… wait I can’t find it… type again… eventually find it… then it opens an explorer window and only then I can find my Excel document. That’s a step backwards imo.
Yeah, I won’t be coding for Win RT anytime soon. I have 0 desire to even bother with it. I make my money doing desktop applications, and that won’t be going away anytime soon. In fact, if I tried to make the businesses that I do my work for update to Win 8, they’d probably laugh me out of the building. And, unfortunately, for Microsoft, enterprise stuff is their bread and butter and Win 8 won’t be taken seriously in the enterprise (hell I’ve seen companies stick with Windows 2000 even right up until Vista).
I made the groupings, they aren’t anywhere near as good as having folders, and their search is horrible compared to Windows 7.
There’s nice things and really stupid things in Windows 8. Metro falls into the latter.
I’m sad you feel that way about “this metro thing.” It’s actually a very beautiful metro thing. Take some time to play around with it. It really is fast and fluid, and fullscreen makes sense because we usually maximize our applications anyway. That said,whether or not you want to, you really should make yourself at home with Metro because in Windows RT (For ARM devices), Microsoft won’t allow non-Microsoft applications to run on the desktop, but third party Metro apps will work. I think this is a big mistake, but on the other hand, such a PC will be practically free of malware considering the strict metro app requirements.
And for the start screen, a good way to use it is to make logical groupings, i.e., utilities like calculator in the first group, games in the second, and whatever you like after that. You can still search by typing, too.