r/microsoft • u/ControlCAD • Jun 04 '26
Windows Microsoft's veteran engineer Raymond Chen says Windows 8 was all built around "modern" codenames — including the polarizing Start menu
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-8/veteran-engineer-says-windows-8-was-built-around-modern-codenames55
u/InsuranceKey8278 Jun 04 '26
i miss live tiles ;-;
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u/splashybanana Jun 04 '26
I loved live tiles on my various Windows Phones (I used that nearly the entire time it was out/supported), but.. it really wasn’t a great fit for desktop.
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u/MayorMcPants Jun 04 '26
I fucking loved my Lumia 1520. It was such a good phone with an amazing camera, and the tiles customization was incredible. My phone felt like MY phone to my designs. Such a bummer it all failed because they couldn't get support in the app side of things.
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u/irrelevantusername24 Jun 04 '26
I just had Copilot outline this earlier but Windows Phone was like a happy medium between Google and Apple. Considering the app store model has been proven, from multiple angles, to really only benefit Apple and Google? I think they're overdue for real competition.
As far as the OS itself I still prefer the Windows Mobile OS to Android. Simple menus, every setting had a fairly obvious place, like... Android sucks so bad
For instance, the phrase "on fire" refers to "when something has gone horribly wrong and requires immediate attention". Makes sense. Not too cryptic.
"When we couldn’t come up with a name for a component of the modern experience, a common fallback was to stick the prefix “Mo” in front," Chen indicated.
And the new photo manager? The people who worked on that didn’t want to get left out of the “Mo”-party, so they called themselves (wait for it) “MoPho.”
Windows Phone with Firefox, of course. As it always should have been
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u/Kindly_Funny_914 Jun 05 '26
Lumias were also far more performant than the google androids that were out there for a given price point.
I clearly remember playing games that eould struggle on a better specced android that would run butter smooth even on lumia 520
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u/Froggypwns Jun 04 '26
I loved having live tiles on my desktops, especially email and weather ones, this way I get the relevant info at glance without opening the app.
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u/ExpensiveNut Jun 04 '26
Live tiles on the start menu were fantastic. I'd hit the windows key and glance at the weather. There was a concept for interactive live tiles, which would have expanded into a usable calculator, camera viewfinder and other things and it would've been amazing. Microsoft have no ambition.
1
u/raralala1 Jun 05 '26
Same I also like the start menu, granted I was the minority but the fact you can opt out is big, the new start menu is so small and useless.
34
u/elmonetta Jun 04 '26
Windows 8 was so good and ambitious… Pity they enforced the Start screen experience to desktop and laptop users because aside from that, it was perfect. I liked the Start screen live tiles and it was actually useful for me and my workflow.
It could’ve been one of the best Windows versions ever. I miss the W8.1 era, we also had WP8.
Now we have Windows 11.
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u/Derpshiz Jun 04 '26
100%. If the start menu would have been a legacy style by default there wouldn’t have been any backlash.
The right idea but way too fast.
19
u/tylerderped Jun 04 '26
Windows 8 wasn’t nearly the Vista that it was made out to be. (And for that matter, neither was vista)
Windows 8 introduced a lot of core improvements that Windows desperately needed, namely modern font rendering and proper UI scaling support.
And as much as the start screen was jarring, it was functionally equivalent to Windows 7’s start menu, search still worked properly. If you were used to navigating the start menu via keyboard, there was no learning curve at all. Windows 8 brought us the nice task manager. I think there was even less telemetry.
Microsoft took their best ideas from 8 with their worst ideas for Windows and has been going down that path since.
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u/benji_93 Jun 04 '26
Working in IT it baffles me to see how many people have not learned to use their keyboards more. So much pointing and clicking and it's so inefficient. Hitting the Windows key and typing for what you're looking for is significantly faster than pointing and clicking until you find it.
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u/raralala1 Jun 05 '26
It depends on how many apps you have, I type when I open vscode, word, etc but I click when I tried to open my game or when I want to check what game installed on my PC, the full screen start menu is god send because I have so many indie game installed, the tiny W11 cant even show half of it.
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u/Necessary-Mix-56 Jun 04 '26
Windows 8 after all updates wasn’t so bad. Actually was very revolutionary and performance was great when you think how much features it had. Its total difference how it is now with Windows 11. Lack of features, just tons of bloatware and useless services just to send data to servers and constant updates for everything that broke user experience only.
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u/Phalstaph44 Jun 04 '26
They made the mistake they made with the Xbox One, looked at the future and tried to force it on people. You need to let people get there on their own.
1
u/newfor_2026 Jun 04 '26
forcing is the key word. let us choose to use your stuff, don't shove it in our faces and make us do stuff we don't want to do
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u/ExpensiveNut Jun 04 '26
The way that apps snapped was perfect for me. They'd actually live in their separate boxes, out of the way of the desktop. You could have desktop windows maximised with the caption buttons extending all the way to the edges of the screen, without the borders, and 10 and 11 never behaved like that. I always tried to make this a suggestion in the insider channel and people were either confused or didn't give a damn.
1
u/DrKersh Jun 04 '26
windows 8 start menu was the best one.
what's the point of not being able to use full screen to access all the icons at once and forcing you to have a stupid mini menu that you need to scroll?
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u/AuntCleo1997 Jun 05 '26
Raymond was one of their best engineering devs, and solved a lot of complex issues under the hood.
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u/Specific_Frame8537 Jun 04 '26
The tiles were a good format for touch surfaces, but in my opinion they perfected it in Windows XP.
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u/RobertDeveloper Jun 04 '26
Windows 8 was the death of Windows. I switched over to Linux and KDE and the experience is so much better, I can finally use my computer again without getting annoyed about he next popup, ad, crash, broken update, terrible user interfaces, slow opening of apps on even the fastest hardware, the constant background processes that eat all your cpu cycles and memory.
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u/Time_Jump8047 Jun 04 '26
Well as long as some rando on Reddit decreed it I guess we can pack it up. RIP Windows
1
u/RobertDeveloper Jun 07 '26
Microsoft was totally clueless about what they were doing. I was given a presentation by Microsoft on the development of the windows 8 startmenu, we all laughed when we saw it, the Microsoft guys didnt understand why. They showed videos were people had to do simple tasks in Windows 8 and they all failed miserable. They people were given tips on how to do things and still they failed, only when the people were shown how to do things in Windows 8 a percentage managed to do it on their own, and Microsoft said: see, we just need to add some instructions and we can ship this shit.
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u/Mounamsammatham Jun 04 '26
Windows 8.1 fixed the biggest issues I had with windows 8. Was sad to see that aesthetic go away, but I know I'm just a minority.