In-Depth with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview
by Andrew Cunningham, Ryan Smith, Kristian Vättö & Jarred Walton on March 9, 2012 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Microsoft
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Windows 8
Working with a mouse
To navigate all of this with a mouse, Microsoft has introduced something it’s calling the “four corners”—each corner of your screen becomes a hot corner with a different function. Clicking repeatedly in the top-left corner will switch between all of your running Metro apps and the desktop (if it’s running), clicking in the lower-left corner will invoke the Start screen, and moving your mouse pointer along the left edge of the screen from either corner opens up the app drawer that shows all of your running apps.
Hovering in either corner on the right of the screen will bring up the Charms menu, which we discussed before, and clicking at the top of the screen and dragging to one or the other edge of the screen (while in a Metro app or sitting at the desktop, but not while running a desktop app) will invoke Metro Snap.
If this all sounds a bit confusing in concept, that’s because it kind of is—there’s no obvious indication that the four corners of the screen do anything in particular, and the “hot” areas of the screen can be easy both to miss or to activate by accident—I found the Back button in a maximized browser window to be tough to hit without invoking the app drawer. There are also some slightly misleading visual cues—for example, when invoking the Start screen from the lower-left corner, one’s impulse is to move the mouse pointer from the corner to click the thumbnail of the Start screen that appears. However, in practice, this will make the thumbnail disappear.
The four corners are especially annoying to deal with on a multi-monitor setup—since the corners are only present on your primary monitor, you’ll frequently find yourself overshooting corners on the edge of the display that is shared with other monitors. You can get accustomed to all of this with some practice, but it’s not particularly efficient, and stuff like this is usually what people are thinking of when they complain about how bad Metro will be for the desktop. It works, but it lacks precision.
Working with a Keyboard
Where Metro actually shines pretty brightly on the desktop is with a keyboard, though there’s one major caveat: if you want to make the most of Metro, you’re going to have to learn your keyboard shortcuts. It has always been true that people who know and make frequent use of keyboard shortcuts in desktop operating systems can do things much more quickly than with a mouse, but in Windows 8 knowing the keyboard shortcuts can be the difference between hating Metro and making peace with it.
In Windows 8, the Start key becomes your PCs “home” button—it will always call up the Start screen whether you’re using a Metro app or the regular desktop. Pressing it again will toggle back to the app you were using. The Windows key will be getting even more of a workout after you learn all of these convenient keystrokes.
Charms:
- Windows + C: See the top level of the Charms menu.
- Windows + Q: Brings up Search. This can also be invoked by typing while on the Start screen.
- Windows + H: The Share charm.
- Windows + K: The Devices charm.
- Windows + I: The Settings charm.
Search:
- Windows + Q: Brings up Search, defaults to searching Apps.
- Windows + W: Brings up Search, defaults to searching Settings.
- Windows + F: Brings up Search, defaults to searching Files.
Others:
- Windows + D: Starts or switches to the Desktop.
- Windows + L: Locks screen without signing you out.
- Windows + Print Screen: Takes a screenshot of the screen's contents and saves it to the Pictures library in .PNG format.
- Windows + Tab: Brings up the application drawer. This keystroke used to bring up Vista and 7’s Flip 3D, a fancy and less-useful Alt+Tab, which mercifully seems to have been killed in Windows 8.
- Alt + Tab: Still switches between all open apps. Unlike Windows + Tab, Alt + Tab shows both individual Metro apps and individual Desktop apps.
- Windows + Z: Brings up menus for Metro apps. In Internet Explorer, for example, this invokes the address bar and the tabbed browsing mechanism.
- Windows + (period key): Invokes Metro Snap—by default, it snaps the currently running app to the right edge of the screen. Pressing it again will move the app to the left edge of the screen, and pressing it a third time will expand the app to take up the whole screen.
- Windows + (plus/minus key): Invokes Magnifier, zooms in/out.
- CTRL + (plus/minus key): Zoom in/out
- CTRL + ALT + DEL: Brings up menu to lock the screen, switch users, sign out, open the Task Manager, or power off the computer.
- Alt + F4: Closes Metro apps.
Metro conclusions
For most, the number one fear with Windows 8 and with Metro is that Microsoft is sacrificing current desktop and laptop users of Windows in an effort to chase the tablet market. Some may disagree with me, but I don’t think this is true. The Start menu is gone, but consider this: the best thing that Microsoft did to the Start menu came in Vista, when the new integrated search made it so that you didn’t actually have to go digging through folders and sub-folders. Not only is that search functionality alive and well in Windows 8, but the problem of folders and subfolders that it was created to avoid is also gone.
Yes, Metro is very different from what came before, and yes, Metro was clearly designed with touch in mind, but once you learn its tricks (and especially once you’ve got the new keyboard shortcuts dedicated to memory) it acquits itself as a flexible and powerful user interface. Even if you’re on a massive 2560x1440 display with multiple monitors and never, ever touch the Windows Store or a Metro app, the Start screen serves as a much more configurable and useful application launcher than the tiny Start menu ever was.
I don’t want to say that the Start screen is definitively better for PC users, especially those who rely on Windows 8's sometimes flaky mouse motions, but I strongly disagree with anyone who says that it’s worse. Microsoft has greatly improved Windows’ functionality on tablets (and if you’ve never used Windows 7 or something older on a currently available tablet PC, let me tell you: it isn’t pretty) while not greatly impacting the operating system’s usability on desktops and laptops. Metro's biggest problem right now is going to be what users bring with them: years of accumulated experience about how Windows should look and work. Windows is still Windows, but all of these changes add up to a new interface that is just different enough to spook users who rely on remembered actions to get around their computers, rather than an actual understanding of how and why things work.
Metro’s other problem (which will be a bigger problem on tablets than it is on desktops) is that too many of the more advanced configuration options kick you to the desktop—things like adding certain networked printers or VPN connections, setting fixed IP addresses, changing power settings and more all open up desktop control panels rather than integrating the functionality into Metro itself. This is OK on a PC, where many users will be spending a lot of time on the desktop anyway, but if this continues to be true of the RTM version (and if it’s also true of Windows on ARM), it could definitely be a problem. To be competitive with Android and iOS, Metro needs to be able to do at least most of the things that they can do without sending you to the Windows desktop. Not all of the desktop control panels need to be crammed into Metro, but advanced users are going to find themselves on the desktop a bit more than should be necessary in a touch-friendly OS.
Now, about the desktop...
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Braden99 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
I work with applications like Maya, Photoshop etc. and find my productivity has not been effected at all in Windows 8. Most of the complaints about Windows 8 are grossly exaggerated, by users who cannot easily adapt to change. MS needed to do something big to insure relevance into the future, prepare for new hybrid devices, and entice a new generation of users, and for the most part every feature of the old start screen is still present. The desktop still exists, and explorer has more features than ever. Those "power" users would have probably been using the keyboard to activate and search through start menu, and now they still can, with same number of key presses (yes a context switch, but only for a second, or as quick as you can type and press enter).That said I'm hoping for a lot of tweaks that improve the features and direction MS are already going in - That's what I'm focusing on my attention on.
ananduser - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
Fair review, impressed by Win8, don't care about GUI sensibilities, I never criticized any OS for subjective GUI peculiarities.Battery issues might also stem from lack of custom drivers that are the norm in laptop land. Anyway I might be wrong seeing as they should work in W8. Maybe they do but don't use W8's touted power saving features.
Why always bring the subject of OSX price vs Win's price ? OSX is an upgrade, it has a requirement that you detain the previous version. Win is sold as a stand alone product(upgrade options exist as well). Now, ever thought about "you get what you pay for"(mac fans always love this phrase) ? W8 will bring out of the box built in hypervisor, storage spaces and incredibly huge hardware support(among many others). Also you can virtualize W8 in any VM. OSX lacks all that and has less hardware support, in fact has hardware restrictions. Bottom line Windows costs more because IT IS WORTH MORE.
PS: Did you really need 2 imacs and a mba to test W8; one Apple PC wasn't enough ?
Braden99 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
"but there’s still no way to use a different wallpaper for each desktop, something that OS X has supported forever"Actually you can in Windows 8. Go into Personalize>Click Desktop Background>Then you can right click pictures, and say set as monitor 1, or 2
Braden99 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
"but there’s still no way to use a different wallpaper for each desktop, something that OS X has supported forever"Actually you can in Windows 8. Go into Personalize>Click Desktop Background>Then you can right click pictures, and say set as monitor 1, or 2
superPC - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
I see that most of you complains about the new start screen. well my father asked me to installed windows 8 on his laptop and he's much happier than he ever was with that laptop (it use to be a vista machine). it loads up in less than 40 seconds (not using SSD old core 2 duo machine with just 1 GB of RAM), shuts down in less than 30. it's super responsive and just plain fast (eventhough i've already installed all of his regular software suite). and he loves the new metro browser and apps. full screen apps looked lovely he said. he even likes metro because "it's more informative and searchable than the old start menus". honestly, windows is not aim at people like us the power user, it's aim at the rest of them: casual users. and if my dad, a 25 year veteran casual user of windows can live with metro than most of us obviously can too.p05esto - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
That's great that it's dumbed down, but my question is WHY are you here on anaddtech? This is a site for real computer users who don't want it dumbed down.MS needs to allow advanced users to turn all the Metro crap off and use the OS just for launching their development apps. We don't want ANY of the crap found on the start screen or the hidden corners or whatever. I don't understand why MS is removing all customizability, it's been getting worse ever since Vista. Even in Office, why force the stupid ribbon, why not let power users use regular menus? I don't get why they force everybody to follow the same strict path. How hard can it be to allow people to bypass the metro start screen and put back the start menu with all their apps?
Oh, and bring back the option to organize apps in the start menu into folders so I don't have to look through 50 apps to see all my graphic editing programs or video programs (I liked putting them into broad folders of apps). Win7 eliminated that possibility. And bring back the SMALL and condensed task menu of apps. In Win7/8 they use these large icons with too much space on the sides...why? I found a registry hack to make them smaller and compact, but why make the large and cumbersome task bar area thre default? It befuddles me.
smilingcrow - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
p05esto: “My question is WHY are you here on anaddtech? This is a site for real computer users who don't want it dumbed down.Oh, and bring back the option to organize apps in the start menu into folders so I don't have to look through 50 apps to see all my graphic editing programs or video programs (I liked putting them into broad folders of apps). Win7 eliminated that possibility.”
Win7 does allow you to organize your apps into folders on the start menu (after you click on All Programs) but it is not as simple as with previous versions. As you are a ‘real computer user’ I will allow you to find that info for yourself; which will be easy now that you know that it is possible which is the hardest info to get.
bigboxes - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
Right-click task bar -> Properties -> Task bar tab -> check "Use small icons"freedom4556 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
Most of the improvements your dad talked about could be attributable to simply clean re-installing an old Vista install and then running updates. The switch to seven would likely have had a similar effect on performance.Sabresiberian - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
An operating system, particularly one as ubiquitous as Windows, should appeal to ALL users, not just the lowest common denominator.There is a difference between making things easier to use for the non-technical person and dumbing down, and sometimes Microsoft loses sight of that.
Reading this article, I don't think Win 8 is necessarily "dumbed down" in it's interface, but I'm not entirely convinced. I do know, I'm not going to live with an OS that requires me to interface with it through big squares on a solid-color background.
I have a lot of trouble understanding why I would want to buy an "app" to begin with, since many of them seem to be nothing more than bookmarks. I seem to have been able to do without them for all the time I've used computers to now, I don't see why using a smart phone or tablet requires them, or even makes those devices better. I don't understand why we can't just have icons like the previous versions of Windows that we can touch to activate, if we want to activate them by touch and have the hardware capability.
This article has allayed some of my fears, and there is clearly enough reason to update from Vista to Win 8 on my next build, providing I can get rid of the yugly (yugly: you'-glee, as in "so ugly it's beyond ugly, it's yugly") interface. My second computer uses Win 7, and I'll have to be very impressed with Win 8 to switch from it when I rebuild a second computer.
Most people in the world that interface with computers are not technically inclined; many of them aren't all that capable in any case. It's good for these things to be easy enough to use that most everyone can use them, just please, please don't penalize ME in the process.
It will take a lot for me to give up DirectX, but I would do it, if it becomes necessary.
;)