Window 8.1 tablets

On 18/10/2014 9:08 PM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 10/18/2014 10:02 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
On 18/10/2014 2:46 PM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2014-10-18 5:07 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
[...]
If Windows 10 kills anything it will be my interest in using any
Microsoft products at all. They*still* don't seem to have realised
that whatever may or may not work with fat fingers on a tablet,
millions of desktop users don't want a screenful of those tiles. [...]

a) you don't have to use Metro if you don't want to;
b) sales figures show that most of those desktop users are buying
laptops as replacements.


a) You *do* have to use Metro, unless you do a lot of modifying to make
the desktop usable. There is no menu "out of the box" to use the desktop
versions of programs, only the cut-down rubbish in Metro. A
non-technical user would never find anything but the Metro apps.

b) The same applies to laptops as desktops - they need the same extra
programs like Classic Shell to make them usable. Metro only has any real
value on a tablet computer or a phone.


You can make Windows 8.1 useable with three simple steps.

1. Find the Desktop icon in the metro interfaces. and click it.

2. Place the cursor in the toolbar on the desktop, and right click.

3. From the resultant pop up select Properties. In the Properties
Navigation tab, click "When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, got
to the Desktop instead of the Start."

When you reboot the computer will go directly to the Desktop. To add
programs to the desktop. Right click the MS icon on the right of the
Desktop tool bar, select File explorer, and add the programs you want to
the desktop.

After using Windows 8.1 for several months now, I go to the Metro App
screen in the Metro Start screen and pin my frequently used programs to
the desktop taskbar. With the Jumplist active (Properties Jumplist) I
see each file I have recently opened by right clicking on the program
icon in the taskbar.

That does not take a Ph.D. to do.



Not exactly. You missed out the most important bit, the necessity to
install another program to restore a usable menu system. But why should
anyone have to do it anyway?

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Keyboard - standard device for generating computer errors.

On 18/10/2014 9:14 PM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 10/18/2014 10:53 AM, philo wrote:
On 10/18/2014 09:03 AM, Bob Henson wrote:




That's correct and exactly the reason I think Microsoft got it wrong.

Too many people just knows computers by rote and to even figure out how
to switch from Metro to Classic is beyond their capability.

I upgraded to 8.1 from 8.0, and it defaulted to the desktop, not Metro.
I think I read somewhere that 8.1 checks to see if you have a touch
screen. If so, it defaults to Metro. If not, it defaults to the
desktop.



You can *make* 8.1 default to the desktop, but as installed it defaults
to Metro.



True, but what I found annoying is that if one hits the wrong key
somewhere, it pops back over to Metro.

Installing a 3rd party program such as Classic Shell fixes that.

You do not need a 3rd party program to make these fixes. Most can be
done from the Properties Navigation tab on the Desktop.

The rest can be changed by right clicking on the MS Icon on the Desktop
Toolbar, and selecting Control Panel. Many are in the Appearance and
Personalization section.


How do you add back a working menu system without a third party program?


--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Gynaecologist - a man who can redecorate his hallway through the letterbox.

On Sat, 18 Oct 2014 15:45:13 -0400, Neil
wrote:

We've still got those wretched tiles. It's possible to avoid them
unless you accidentally select something wrong, then you stumble back
into a screenful of them. And they're still there in Windows 10, in
the Start menu. Microsoft seem determined at all costs to get us using
tiles whether we want them or not. What's wrong with a list?

Microsoft most likely doesn't care whether YOU use tiles or not.
However, much of the world has changed the way it is working, and folks
with phones and tablets have shown to be not the least bit interested in
"lists" as a UI. Just ask Blackberry.

Then we should use an operating system suitable for phones and tablets
on phones and tablets, and an operating system suitable for desktop
PCs on desktop PCs. There's no reason why they have to be the same.

Even as far back as the Palm OS,
users have been pretty clear about their preferences for a GUI, and
today, it's a no-brainer that it's the only thing that WILL sell.

Thanks to the near monopoly position occupied by Microsoft, for many
people in practice it's the only thing available. If it's the only
thing selling, that's why.

Luckily it's not the only thing selling on Ebay.

Metro/Modern is the integrating UI for those devices and having "the app
that you know" available on the desktop can't be that hard to
understand, can it?

I don't find it hard to understand that a phone works like a phone and
a computer works like a computer. Trying to make them both work the
same way seems pointless and can only end up with a compromise.

I think it's a good thing that, even in 8.1, you can choose to use Tiles
or avoid them entirely.

While I had Windows 8.1 on my laptop, I tried to choose to avoid the
tiles entirely, but it wasn't easy. I'd still occasionally stumble
into a screenful of them, or some unfamiliar application that filled
the screen and was difficult to discard.

Rod.

On Sat, 18 Oct 2014 16:08:18 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

You can make Windows 8.1 useable with three simple steps.

1. Find the Desktop icon in the metro interfaces. and click it.

2. Place the cursor in the toolbar on the desktop, and right click.

3. From the resultant pop up select Properties. In the Properties
Navigation tab, click "When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, got
to the Desktop instead of the Start."

I made my windows 8.1 laptop useable in only two simple steps.

1. Use Gparted to clear all the partitions it occupied.

2. Install Windows 7.

Now I *really* never see the Metro interface - because it's not there!

Rod.

On 19/10/2014 10:14 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2014 16:08:18 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

You can make Windows 8.1 useable with three simple steps.

1. Find the Desktop icon in the metro interfaces. and click it.

2. Place the cursor in the toolbar on the desktop, and right click.

3. From the resultant pop up select Properties. In the Properties
Navigation tab, click "When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, got
to the Desktop instead of the Start."

I made my windows 8.1 laptop useable in only two simple steps.

1. Use Gparted to clear all the partitions it occupied.

2. Install Windows 7.

Now I *really* never see the Metro interface - because it's not there!

Rod.


That's my preferred option, but unfortunately, I have to use 8, 8.1 and
eventually 10 on other folk's machines.

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Some days, you're the dog; some days you're the lamppost.

On Sat, 18 Oct 2014 14:25:36 +0100, Bob Henson wrote:

Certainly. For what you have to pay for Windows, it should work
"first rattle out of the box".

It does.

On Sat, 18 Oct 2014 07:45:03 -0700, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

Alas, I *do* agree with that last statement. I think Microsoft has
done a very poor job of making it clear that Windows 8 has two
interfaces and you can use either or both.

No I think they've made it clear that you can either login to the
Desktop, or to a customisable Start screen. Why is that so hard to
understand?

On Sun, 19 Oct 2014 10:06:34 +0100, Roderick Stewart wrote:

Then we should use an operating system suitable for phones and
tablets on phones and tablets, and an operating system suitable
for desktop PCs on desktop PCs. There's no reason why they have
to be the same.

Unless you have a transformable machine (e.g. Surface)?

Caver1 wrote:
On 10/18/2014 03:57 PM, Neil wrote:
[...]
For those who want to use the same apps on their desktop, with data
in sync via a cloud server, that notion is completely useless. So,
you're betting on the Luddites, and I'm betting on the rest of the
world. ;-)


You can have your data synced in the cloud with real programs not just
apps. The younger generations that only want to use their phones or
maybe tablets don't do any real work on them.

Based on the conversation "personal cloud drives", I'd say that most
people are not prepared to sync the data from their old programs between
their various devices, even if they ran on them, which they don't. How
interesting is it that you think you know what all forms of "real work" are,
and that by definition, if one is using a phone or a tablet, they can't
possibly be doing it? Take another look at the original Blackberry user
base, and the absurdity of that notion becomes immediately obvious.

--
best regards,

Neil

Bob Henson wrote:
On 18/10/2014 8:57 PM, Neil wrote:
On 10/18/2014 10:02 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
On 18/10/2014 2:46 PM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2014-10-18 5:07 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
[...]
If Windows 10 kills anything it will be my interest in using any
Microsoft products at all. They*still* don't seem to have
realised that whatever may or may not work with fat fingers on a
tablet, millions of desktop users don't want a screenful of those
tiles. [...]

a) you don't have to use Metro if you don't want to;
b) sales figures show that most of those desktop users are buying
laptops as replacements.


a) You *do* have to use Metro, unless you do a lot of modifying to
make the desktop usable. There is no menu "out of the box" to use
the desktop versions of programs, only the cut-down rubbish in
Metro. A non-technical user would never find anything but the Metro
apps.

There are so many options to address this without "a lot of
modifiying" that by now every Win8 user should know them, whether or
not they are, like myself, completely uninterested in going that
route.

b) The same applies to laptops as desktops - they need the same
extra programs like Classic Shell to make them usable. Metro only
has any real value on a tablet computer or a phone.

For those who want to use the same apps on their desktop, with data
in sync via a cloud server, that notion is completely useless. So,
you're betting on the Luddites, and I'm betting on the rest of the
world. ;-)


No, you're betting on what you would like to see - but it's not
actually like that.

What I see is that sales of iPads, Android tablets, and smart phones are
trending upward, and sales of desktop PCs are tanking. I'm just not in
denial about those facts, so I base my "bets" on the implication of those
trends. It looks to me that MS is in agreement with that perspective.

--
best regards,

Neil

On 10/19/2014 4:46 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
On 18/10/2014 9:14 PM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 10/18/2014 10:53 AM, philo wrote:
On 10/18/2014 09:03 AM, Bob Henson wrote:




That's correct and exactly the reason I think Microsoft got it wrong.

Too many people just knows computers by rote and to even figure out how
to switch from Metro to Classic is beyond their capability.

I upgraded to 8.1 from 8.0, and it defaulted to the desktop, not Metro.
I think I read somewhere that 8.1 checks to see if you have a touch
screen. If so, it defaults to Metro. If not, it defaults to the
desktop.



You can *make* 8.1 default to the desktop, but as installed it defaults
to Metro.



True, but what I found annoying is that if one hits the wrong key
somewhere, it pops back over to Metro.

Installing a 3rd party program such as Classic Shell fixes that.

You do not need a 3rd party program to make these fixes. Most can be
done from the Properties Navigation tab on the Desktop.

The rest can be changed by right clicking on the MS Icon on the Desktop
Toolbar, and selecting Control Panel. Many are in the Appearance and
Personalization section.


How do you add back a working menu system without a third party program?


What Menu System do you want.

When you right click on the MS icon you get a complete menu of the
computer functions. In the Control Panel if you click View By in the
upper right corner and change to large/Small Icons, you have a screen
quite similar to the one in Windows XP.

In many of the screens from the Right Click MS Icon menu, have the
ability to change the display to another view, Another eexample is
Network Connections

On 10/19/2014 5:06 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2014 15:45:13 -0400, Neil
wrote:

We've still got those wretched tiles. It's possible to avoid them
unless you accidentally select something wrong, then you stumble back
into a screenful of them. And they're still there in Windows 10, in
the Start menu. Microsoft seem determined at all costs to get us using
tiles whether we want them or not. What's wrong with a list?

Microsoft most likely doesn't care whether YOU use tiles or not.
However, much of the world has changed the way it is working, and folks
with phones and tablets have shown to be not the least bit interested in
"lists" as a UI. Just ask Blackberry.

Then we should use an operating system suitable for phones and tablets
on phones and tablets, and an operating system suitable for desktop
PCs on desktop PCs. There's no reason why they have to be the same.

Even as far back as the Palm OS,
users have been pretty clear about their preferences for a GUI, and
today, it's a no-brainer that it's the only thing that WILL sell.

Thanks to the near monopoly position occupied by Microsoft, for many
people in practice it's the only thing available. If it's the only
thing selling, that's why.

Luckily it's not the only thing selling on Ebay.

Metro/Modern is the integrating UI for those devices and having "the app
that you know" available on the desktop can't be that hard to
understand, can it?

I don't find it hard to understand that a phone works like a phone and
a computer works like a computer. Trying to make them both work the
same way seems pointless and can only end up with a compromise.

I think it's a good thing that, even in 8.1, you can choose to use Tiles
or avoid them entirely.

While I had Windows 8.1 on my laptop, I tried to choose to avoid the
tiles entirely, but it wasn't easy. I'd still occasionally stumble
into a screenful of them, or some unfamiliar application that filled
the screen and was difficult to discard.

Rod.

That is the biggest drawback to Windows 8.1. Once you open a Metro
program in in nearly impossible to close that program. YES MS brought
the Upper X to close the Window, but that does not close the program.
Working with a mouse exclusively the only option is to kill it in the
Task Manager. If you hit the Windows Key on the key board it will get
you out of most Metro programs.

On 10/19/2014 7:53 AM, Neil Gould wrote:
Caver1 wrote:
On 10/18/2014 03:57 PM, Neil wrote:
[...]
For those who want to use the same apps on their desktop, with data
in sync via a cloud server, that notion is completely useless. So,
you're betting on the Luddites, and I'm betting on the rest of the
world. ;-)


You can have your data synced in the cloud with real programs not just
apps. The younger generations that only want to use their phones or
maybe tablets don't do any real work on them.

Based on the conversation "personal cloud drives", I'd say that most
people are not prepared to sync the data from their old programs between
their various devices, even if they ran on them, which they don't. How
interesting is it that you think you know what all forms of "real work" are,
and that by definition, if one is using a phone or a tablet, they can't
possibly be doing it? Take another look at the original Blackberry user
base, and the absurdity of that notion becomes immediately obvious.


I run many programs that do not lend them selves to a small screen
tablet. Have you ever tried touch type on a tablet? What a bout do
anything on a large spread sheet, more than reviewing and making minor
corrections.

When working on the net I have my browser and email programs open so I
can see them in different parts of the screen, you can not do the well
on a tablet.

I also work with genealogy and use Family Tree Maker. When things get
going I may end up with a dozen windows open simultaneously on the
screen with each screen positions so I can see the information I need in
its portion of the scree. And no Family Tree Maker is not the same as
working on a tree on Ancestry. Just in this folder on my computer I
have nearly 8 gigabytes of data, larger that the memory on some tablets.

Finally having it all on my computer, I am not tied to changing cell
towers, atmospheric interference, and to an unreliable ISP.

On 10/19/2014 7:58 AM, Neil Gould wrote:
Bob Henson wrote:
On 18/10/2014 8:57 PM, Neil wrote:
On 10/18/2014 10:02 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
On 18/10/2014 2:46 PM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2014-10-18 5:07 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
[...]
If Windows 10 kills anything it will be my interest in using any
Microsoft products at all. They*still* don't seem to have
realised that whatever may or may not work with fat fingers on a
tablet, millions of desktop users don't want a screenful of those
tiles. [...]

a) you don't have to use Metro if you don't want to;
b) sales figures show that most of those desktop users are buying
laptops as replacements.


a) You *do* have to use Metro, unless you do a lot of modifying to
make the desktop usable. There is no menu "out of the box" to use
the desktop versions of programs, only the cut-down rubbish in
Metro. A non-technical user would never find anything but the Metro
apps.

There are so many options to address this without "a lot of
modifiying" that by now every Win8 user should know them, whether or
not they are, like myself, completely uninterested in going that
route.

b) The same applies to laptops as desktops - they need the same
extra programs like Classic Shell to make them usable. Metro only
has any real value on a tablet computer or a phone.

For those who want to use the same apps on their desktop, with data
in sync via a cloud server, that notion is completely useless. So,
you're betting on the Luddites, and I'm betting on the rest of the
world. ;-)


No, you're betting on what you would like to see - but it's not
actually like that.

What I see is that sales of iPads, Android tablets, and smart phones are
trending upward, and sales of desktop PCs are tanking. I'm just not in
denial about those facts, so I base my "bets" on the implication of those
trends. It looks to me that MS is in agreement with that perspective.


You are seeing the results of metoism. Once the fad changed from the
cell phone, the numbers will become closer to the way things are in
practice. The person who has bought every new apple phone skews the
statistics.

People who use their computers for actual work are the ones not
upgrading to the newest computer release and the newest operating system.

When computers were new, the same group of people increase the sales
numbers for new cell phones/tablets were the same people buying the next
fastest processor as it was released. Metoism.

Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 10/19/2014 7:53 AM, Neil Gould wrote:
Caver1 wrote:
On 10/18/2014 03:57 PM, Neil wrote:
[...]
For those who want to use the same apps on their desktop, with data
in sync via a cloud server, that notion is completely useless. So,
you're betting on the Luddites, and I'm betting on the rest of the
world. ;-)


You can have your data synced in the cloud with real programs not
just apps. The younger generations that only want to use their
phones or maybe tablets don't do any real work on them.

Based on the conversation "personal cloud drives", I'd say that
most people are not prepared to sync the data from their old
programs between their various devices, even if they ran on them,
which they don't. How interesting is it that you think you know what
all forms of "real work" are, and that by definition, if one is
using a phone or a tablet, they can't possibly be doing it? Take
another look at the original Blackberry user base, and the absurdity
of that notion becomes immediately obvious.


I run many programs that do not lend them selves to a small screen
tablet.

Nor should they be required to do so. That does not disqualify the apps that
*are* usable on small screens.

Have you ever tried touch type on a tablet?

Yes, but if typing is important, keyboards work just fine, and have been
available for tablets for decades. Even my old Palm had one.

What a bout do
anything on a large spread sheet, more than reviewing and making minor
corrections.

Hopefully, one wouldn't have to do more than minor changes to a spreadsheet
on a smart phone. The point is, with Win8.1, you *can* do that, and even if
it's only to read the spreadsheet/database/word file etc., that too, is a
good thing.

When working on the net I have my browser and email programs open so I
can see them in different parts of the screen, you can not do the well
on a tablet.

That is a personal preference, and it just may be that your personal
preferences aren't well-suited to "the new ways", but that doesn't
invalidate the new ways! ;-)

I also work with genealogy and use Family Tree Maker. When things get
going I may end up with a dozen windows open simultaneously on the
screen with each screen positions so I can see the information I need
in its portion of the scree. And no Family Tree Maker is not the
same as working on a tree on Ancestry. Just in this folder on my
computer I have nearly 8 gigabytes of data, larger that the memory on
some tablets.

I'm familiar with FTM, as my wife has used it for many years. Just because
that app is currently oriented toward desktop users does not mean that it
won't adapt in the future, or that another alternative won't come along that
does the job even better while using fewer resources. After all, it is just
a database app with a restrictive UI. BTW, your "8 gigabytes of data" does
not mean that it is all loaded into active memory when the app is opened (it
is not, in fact), and storage of far more than that amount has not been a
problem on tablets for many years now.

Finally having it all on my computer, I am not tied to changing cell
towers, atmospheric interference, and to an unreliable ISP.

OTOH, you can't carry it with you! 8-D
Once again, your personal requirements do not invalidate others' personal
requirements.

--
best regards,

Neil