Microsoft: Windows 8 To RTM In August

nk497 writes "Microsoft has confirmed Windows 8 will RTM the first week of August, with general availability in late October. Steve Ballmer suggested Microsoft expected Surface to sell "millions" of the 375m Windows 8 PCs expected to sell in the next year — spending much of the keynote talking about partners' devices. From the article: 'Tami Reller, chief financial officer and chief marketing officer of the Windows and Windows Live division, confirmed the release date at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto today, as she showed off a host of Windows 8 devices created by the software giant's manufacturing partners.'"

Comments

Is this only for tablets

[Anonymous Coward]

Question: is there any reason for PC users to consider this OS, or is it only for tablets?

Re:Is this only for tablets

[Anonymous Coward]

Me and Vista were two very different problems. The former is what happens when you half-heartedly add a few features to a dying OS; the latter is what happens when you try to do quite a bit of under-the-hood engineering and modernisation, give up, start again, and then realise you've sold nothing new for half a decade so put out what you have before you're ready.

8 is what happens when you imagine that Program Manager wasn't sufficiently unsuitable for a modern high-res PC, and instead decide that you're working in CGA in an accessibility mode for people with reduced vision and dexterity.

This is like Acorn, Amiga, etc. in the late '90s - instead of following their strengths in the desktop world, they suddenly rush to the new consumer device - then it was the Set Top Box / Multimedia Thing / etc. A few minutes later, they're all but dead.

Hm, could MS really die out soon on the desktop?

Re:Is this only for tablets

[Anonymous Coward]

If they do, they're gonna take the desktop down with them.

And, showing nothing ever changes on /.

[kiwimate]

Four stories after a submission asking if grammar matters any more, we find this gem of a sentence in the summary:

Steve Ballmer suggested Microsoft expected Surface to sell "millions" of the 375m Windows 8 PCs expected to sell in the next year â" spending much of the keynote talking about partners' devices.

Only thing bad about Win8 is Metro

[Aqualung812]

Comparing Win8 to ME or Vista is unfair to Win8.

The really sad part about Win8 is Metro. There is a LOT to like about the underlying OS (password unmask, much better taskmanager, and many other small improvements), and I have no reason to think that the OS itself will be unstable like ME or Vista.

If Microsoft would fix Metro on the desktop (It may be fine for tablets and phones), Win8 would be something I would like. However, as it currently stands, I won't "upgrade" until I have a good, stable way to disable Metro and use the other features of the OS.

Re:Only thing bad about Win8 is Metro

[smash]

Yeah don't get me wrong, I like Win7 a lot better than vista. But when comparing XP to Vista, Vista got a pretty fucking bad wrap. It made important steps in hardware abstraction, user space drivers, better security model, etc. Without vista before it, Windows 7 would have faced all the same compatibility and driver issues by virtue of being first to introduce them.

RTM (Really Tired of Microsoft)

[na1led]

I have been testing Windows 8 on my tablet PC for months now, and it's been a horrible experience. The interface is very cumbersome. It's difficult to find your programs and settings without a real Start Menu, and why have two different browsers (Metro and Desktop)? Also, any computer with an Intel Chipset of 865-965 is not fully supported (most PC's from a few years ago). Startup is fast, but some applications will not work properly unless you do a full restart. Oh, and the stylus keyboard only shows up when using the Metro Apps, you have to manually bring up the keyboad when using the desktop apps. And who thought of making it so hard to access the shutdown menu? What were they thinking?