You've got it all wrong... Windows Ballmer

Re: Metro is so Retro, so they should call it

The biggest problem is making the damned thing mandatory. Sure, some people will love it; some commenters are already defending it. There's no reason they shouldn't like it....except when they go on to claim the naysayers must stupid if they can't figure it out.

Nope. We're not stupid. We simply don't WANT to use it. We see no real benefit in it, aesthetically or as part of a tool intended to get things done.

Nor do we want to support the fast or slow retraining of end users and waste millions of work hours for no good reason. And let's not even go into the incompatibility with existing software and hardware that has become the norm with every new Windows version, costing the end user more wasted time and money.

How hard would it be for Microsoft to offer a "The-Interface-Formerly-Known-As-Metro" option for those who love it, and leave the same old consistent, everyone knows it already, Start Menu/Toolbar/Desktop for everyone else? Particularly corporations?

Who are, by the way, in huge numbers still using Windows XP. (Haven't any of you checked in with, oh, maybe a large U.S. health service or hospital lately? They can't afford patients dying because of a tiny incompatibility with Vista discovered a bit too late...say, while the doctor is performing surgery).

I'm not a Microsoft hater....but I am fed up with them spending more and more time trying to "compete" in areas where they are playing catch up, instead of seriously digging in and giving us the kind of OS they used to be capable of.

Sorry, MS, my customers are in droves sticking with XP, the ones who got new computers with Vista or Windows 7 in the majority don't like it in comparison (some loathe it). The ones who never used Windows before, not so much of a problem, because they mostly only use it for web browsing, word processing, etc., online email, and they assume the little quirks they encounter are normal.

But older users, especially the businesses I support? Most of them are asking WHY they need to upgrade when all it means is frustration and expense? I'm trying to get them to give 7 a chance-how sad that is.

The home users go on about how they particularly hate Mail, not being able to set up separate users like they did in Outlook Express, and major gripes about windows constantly Snapping to full screen (until I show them how to turn that off - not real easy for your average user to find, you know? And why the hell would you make that the default anyway?)

Maybe you scoff at those as small things, but MS, you aren't getting the point: Those small bits of frustration add up after a while - a ribbon here, an over-simplified search interface there, another change in terminology - is it Shut Down? Turn Off? Are they the same? What happened to My Documents?

Every minute of productive time a user loses, while they wrestle, however briefly, with something different that didn't need to be changed - that seems to have been changed solely for the sake of change, or "hipness", or a marketing team's suggestion, or to be more like a competitor (why?) - builds up.

Lose enough minutes, and you've lost an hour. Lose an hour of time you intended to spend on a task, because the tool you use to accomplish it was redesigned and no longer comfortable or familiar...well, an hour is a lot of time to lose if you're on a deadline, or have promised to be at your daughter's baseball game.

It doesn't take much before another Windows user snaps....and asks me about getting a Mac. Or about, "that Linux thing".

Congratulations, Redmond. Your own OS is becoming the best free advertising there is for other platforms. Daddy Bill must be so proud.

Source: http://forums.reghardware.com/forum/containing/1500019

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