New Windows 9 Desktop screenshots show that Metro isn’t dead yet
New Windows 9 Desktop screenshots show that Metro isn’t dead yet
A bunch of new Windows 9 technical preview screenshots have been leaked… and I think you will either be curiously surprised, or utterly revolted. Good news: In Windows 9, it does indeed look like Desktop users won’t be thrust back into the full-screen Metro interface. Bad news: The Desktop interface now looks like it has been infected by Metro.
These new screenshots come from Windows 9 build 9834, which was compiled on September 8. It seems the build was distributed to one of Microsoft’s partners, which then took a bunch of screenshots and sent them to WinFuture and ComputerBase. We have confirmed that these screenshots are genuine — though of course Microsoft could be trying out a few different builds with a variety of appearances and features to gauge how they’re received by different partners. With all that said, we expect the Windows 9 technical preview, which is due on or around September 30, to look a lot like these screenshots.
Without further ado, the screenshots.
There are a few more screenshots available on ComputerBase if you want, but these five tell you everything that you need to know.
First of all, it would seem the Metro interface isn’t entirely going away for mouse-and-keyboard users. We always knew that the resurrected Start menu would include some Metro-style live tiles, but it it would appear that the left-hand menu has also been Metrofied. I wouldn’t worry too much about the purple: You can probably (hopefully) change the color or make it transparent. Personally, I am more worried about the PC Settings — rather than having a unified Control Panel, it would seem that Windows 9 will continue the odd dichotomy of having to look in two different places to configure your computer.
Read: Will Windows 9, and all future Microsoft OSes, simply be called ‘Windows’?
Second, if you thought that Windows 8 was flat, Windows 9 is even flatter. Desktop windows now have just a one-pixel border, and some icons have been reworked so that they’re two-dimensional (check out that ugly Explorer icon on the taskbar). Note that some icons in Explorer (Documents, Downloads) are still 3D-style — but that might change before release. The taskbar jump list has also been reworked — it too has a one-pixel border.
There’s a new search button on the taskbar next to the Start button, but none of the screenshots show what it does. You can also see the virtual desktops interface, which is presumably activated by clicking that other button on the taskbar (there’ll be a keyboard shortcut too, I’m sure).
There don’t seem to be any other major changes. So far, other than a few cosmetic changes and the addition of virtual desktops, it seems Microsoft has mostly made good on its promise to bring back the Start menu and to allow Metro apps to run on the Desktop. There’s no hint of Cortana yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t make it into the technical preview. Overall, I remain fairly optimistic that Windows 9 will be good for mouse-and-keyboard users — but I am definitely disappointed to see PC Settings on the Desktop version of Windows 9, and I’m still quite curious about how the Start menu’s live tiles will work in practice.
I hope Microsoft has a good reason for continuing to shove the Metro interface into the path of mouse-and-keyboard users. It would be so easy to confine the Metro interface to just tablets and touchscreen devices, where it actually works quite well, and keep the Desktop side of things 100% mouse-and-keyboard oriented.
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