Microsoft, I don’t understand you anymore
This week has been my week of attempting to get comfy with Windows 8’s changes as I’ve upgraded my work PC to the final release, but there’s two things that are driving me insane.
Perhaps I’m just a dinosaur. Used to old ways of going about the day on my PC. Used to certain things I expect from a desktop. But I really feel like these design decisions are wrong. They feel like they weren’t even thought through.
Confusion 1 #
Get ready to see this a lot
I don’t understand how Microsoft can justify making the full-screen Metro applications for basic tasks default on the desktop Windows OS.
Every time I try and open an image, no matter how tiny it is, I’m thrown into full screen unwillingly. A video? Full screen. A PDF? Full screen.
It actually started making me quite angry. Another thing about those Metro apps? They’re SLOW. I don’t mean I’m waiting minutes, but seriously, 5 - 10 seconds to open a tiny an image is far too long. I can’t wait to see this on a machine that doesn’t have a quad core.
Actual screenshot of viewing an image in Metro at 1080p
Couldn’t Microsoft have just included a nice step in the setup process if they couldn’t determine the form factor that politely asks “Are you on a desktop or a tablet” or perhaps could’ve asked “Do you want to open files by default in Metro-style applications or traditional ones” and adjusted the defaults back to Media Player and Windows Image Viewer for me if I selected the appropriate one?
Apparently not. We are all burdened with this Metro paradigm (which I am sure works great on a tablet) by default that makes literally no sense. Yes, I can change it myself, but this is 2012. We should be able to automate these things by now.
Confusion 2 #
I was kindly posted a Stereo Bluetooth headset for review, and have been attempting to use it with Windows 8, but the sheer confusion and anger it is bringing to me is almost unbearable. To connect the device, I must right click the Bluetooth icon in the tray (good luck, tablet users), then I am thrown into Metro. I manage to pair my device, but it’s not connected. I can’t hear audio through it.
I go back to said device screen and tap on the device. Over and over. Nothing happens. Literally nothing. After about 30 minutes of farting around and trying to figure out if it was my device at fault, it turns out I need to go into the sound control panel, right click on my “disabled” device and click connect. Then it works. Isn’t this meant to be easy? How in the hell will I do this on a tablet?
Someone just needs to explain to me how these design decisions make any logical sense.
I don’t have much more to say on this, but Windows 8 seems to be full of these idiosyncrasies. It’s actually surprising how many of them there are.
Oh, and there are no new screen-savers. I’m not mad, just disappointed.