Slashdot Mirror
Even Windows 8 Users Prefer Windows 7
judgecorp writes "Windows 8 is not proving an instant hit amongst the early adopters who have got their hands on it. More than half of them prefer Windows 7, according to a survey by a Windows 8 forum. Skeptics cited fears of price and compatibility issues. Meanwhile, Intel is busily applying damage limitation to criticism by CEO Paul Otellini. Apparently he did say Windows 8 wasn't ready — but added that it was still a good idea to get it out before the holiday season."
How does it make sense to push a buggy product out the door before it's ready? It only makes sense if you want the product to tank.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Something tells me that Windows 7 is here to stay, at least for the next decade or so. I can't see a lot of people switching any time soon.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I find 8's new Metro UI to be genuinely worse for desktops. I gave it a chance, just like I did 7's new taskbar, but it has failed to win me over. It is not a good way for working with a desktop. My desktop is not a tablet, I do not use a touch screen. So a start menu replacer (Start 8 is my choice) gets installed.
Also I'm sorry but it is ugly. It is a step back looks wise. 7 looks pretty slick. All the desktop composition is put to good use making it look nifty. In 8, it is just ugly. The desktop composition is still there underneath, and is in fact even improved, but it is used to render a very ugly UI. Worse still, the UI changes make it more difficult to navigate, it is hard to tell if something is a window for a separate program, or just a window under the current one. They all look the same.
It's sad because technically, 8 is quite competent. It is very fast. Cakewalk found basically across the board improvements in Sonar (http://blog.cakewalk.com/windows-8-a-benchmark-for-music-production-applications/) and this is just their release software, not a special 8 build. So it looks like under the hood, 8 is a good OS. However its UI is truly a step back and the UI is the first thing most people notice.
It isn't a horrible OS, but it is worse than it should be, all on account of them wanting to try and use their desktop and server OS to push tablet sales.
Hanging back might, on the contrary, send a message to Microsoft to fix things up and release an OS people actually want to use.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
And just extended the Windows 7 shell so it had a "Tablet" mode with some sort of auto-detection, they might have kept the desktop people happy AND the tablet crowd happy - just like the actual users suggested on the Windows forums, again and again and again....
Microsoft, missing the obvious since the 80s.
Next up? Microsoft ignores 3d printing until Linux dominates the field!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Windows 8: Emacs edition
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Windows 8 isn't buggy... it's unfinished and unpolished. What is there works well.
The desktop and metro side by side experiences make you feel like Microsoft put a lot of effort into getting the system running fast, smooth, and seamless, and then forgot to do anything with the desktop, or bring over any of the options. I posted about this yesterday, but suffice to say, Windows 8 is really great in terms of technical prowess, but the UI is unfinished, unpolished, and jarring, to say the least. And this is coming from somebody who actually *likes* Windows.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
This might be blasphemy, but IMO windows 7 is far more polished than *any* flavour of Linux.
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
I'm going to sneak into your house and change the way all the doors swing. It's change and that's a good thing.
You'll be really keen to see how I changed the toilet lid hinge!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This might be blasphemy, but IMO windows 7 is far more polished than *any* flavour of Linux.
If by "polished" you mean "pretty" and "shiny" I agree, W7 is much prettier and shinier than Linux. If, however, you mean stable, feature-rich and bug-free, no way. What takes three clicks in KDE takes ten in W7. W7 is far less useable and far less stable, although it's head and shoulders above previous OSes in stability.
I currently have three computers, one with kubuntu, one with WXP and one with W7. We'll ignore the WXP machine.
Maintenance -- Windows still lags badly. In W7 you get the update notification, and you have to download and install the updates (unless you use autoupdate, which I stopped after an XP update replaced a perfectly good network driver with a 100% nonfunctional one). Then you have to reboot the computer.
Kubuntu, one click and you're done. No reboots, no muss, no fuss.
When the Windows computer reboots you have to enter your password (even on a single-user machine in your house that you live alone in) and reopen all the apps and docs that were open before you booted. In Linux, if the power goes out, you can have set the OS to enter your password for you on bootup. The machine restarts, and your password is entered and all your apps and docs that were open before are open again. That, to my mind, is polish, and W7 lacks it.
If you add new hardware to your W7 box, it will detect it on startup and maybe (but not usually) find the right driver. More often you have to insert an install disk and run an installer.
Then, of course, you have to reboot after a bunch of UACs.
Linux? Start it up and the new hardware just works. No installation, no muss, no fuss, no reboots. It just works. That's MY idea of "polished" and by that criteria, Linux is far more polished. But if your criteria for "polished" is "pretty" than yes, W7 is prettier than any Linux distro. But far less functional and with far fewer features. I have yet to find a single feature in W7 that kubuntu lacks.
Free Martian Whores!