Microsoft have rolled out Windows 8 to a third of their workforce to demonstrate that it can be done. See here..

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mscio/archive/2012/08/07/deploying-windows-8-within-microsoft.aspx

Great stuff, but everybody knows that it can be done, but it requires planning and retraining to a greater degree than the transition to Windows 7. This is the point raised by corporates, the cost and time implementing the help, and this is exactly what the blog is about. Microsoft have set up a reasonably elaborate help system which is what corporates want to avoid.

In Mary Jo Foley’s article, one of the comments asks if the employees are as happy about it as the company obviously is. I had t smile at this because generally, companies don’t care as long as the implementation is pain free and cheap.

I found this statement interesting..

“.. we saw that site visits greatly exceeded the number of unique users. We interpreted this site traffic as positive; the site is sticky and employees are coming back to it. “

I would see this as employees struggling with Windows 8, and maybe other will see it the same way.

Neither the desktop or the pile of tiles is difficult to use. The annoying part is being dumped from one into the other at a second’s notice, and having to fish for the piles of tiles in order to start another program.

But when I think about it, this is what many users have been doing for years. These people like all of the program icons on the desktop, where they claim that it is easy to find them. The ‘Windows 8 UI’ does just this, the only real difference being that there is no ‘return to the desktop’ icon in a quick launch toolbar when using a program..Somebody ought to consider whether an icon within a program could be made to do this.

When Windows 7 was first released as a beta, the classic menu had been scuppered for the most part. I was amazed at how many thought that the ‘pin to’ function was a great step forward.  For most, the classic menu was the Start button and a drop down list, and they thought this because the majority had no idea that the classic menu could be customised. There was never any documentation.

The ‘pin to the Start menu’ is new, but the ‘pin to the taskbar’ had been around for years, but the majority didn’t know that program icons could be dragged and dropped into Quick Launch  because there was no documentation.

Consumers will click or tap an icon on the new interface, and will initially be pleased until such time as they want to try another ‘app’. Will there be a link to //Pointers in each app? For us oldies, the answer is simple. Use Alt + F4 just like in the good old days.

If you look carefully at what is happening, you will see that we are not moving forwards at all. The direction is backwards to a time which many of today’s users will not remember. Quite clever in it’s way. Maybe in ten years or so, we will be sold the idea of a start button and quick launch again, except that it will not be again for some. It will be for the first time and really exciting..

Well, one week to go and I have made sure that the ALT and F4 keys are in perfect shape.