Slashdot Mirror
Windows 7 Still Being Sold On Up To 93% of British PCs
nk497 writes "The vast majority of PCs sold by British PC makers are running Windows 7 — not Windows 8. PC Pro spoke to several PC builders, with some reporting as many as 93% of recently sold machines were on the older OS. One company initially sold its PCs with Windows 8, but feedback from users soon changed that. Customers quickly began to specify systems with Windows 7, those with Windows 8 'took delivery and wanted to change back to Windows 7' – a process the firm described as a 'nightmare.' Another firm found success by installing a 'start menu' tool on Windows 8 machines, and others said the switch would have gone smoother if Microsoft has offered a Windows 8 tutorial or better explained the new OS."
Windows 8 UI is ghastly. With Classic Shell though, you'll never need to load metro again, and then its just a fast Win 7...
There's a number of reasons for not switching from Windows 7.
First, it's the operating system most of us always wanted. It gets closer to a perfected version of Windows XP. It does everything we need with the software and the interface paradigms we've known for 20 years.
Second, I don't trust any new product until it has been on the market for 18 months in order to get the bugs out. Developers know why, and the reason isn't developers (generally).
Finally, I distrust trends. They blow through, take your money, and blow out the other door. I trust reliability and paradigms that are time-tested.
As a lack of positive reason, I'm not sure what Windows 8 offers that Windows 7 does not. There are improvements; they look really neat. I'd like to play with them, on some computer I'm not using for work when I have lots of spare time to play around with it.
The computer is a tool for me. I use it to achieve other ends. Thus I'm not that fascinated with the OS and want it to "just work." Windows 7 does that, or an adequate job of it at least, on a wide variety of hardware.
My brother (in the US) just ordered a PC from a manufacturer's website (discontinued model, inventory clearance, actually a decent deal).
Windows 8 was the default. Windows 7 was a $50 option (over 10% of the total price). He paid the $50.
Microsoft, are you listening? (Yeah, I didn't think so...)
Win8 is just horrible win 7 is at least what vista should of been ..
That's because W7 is the service pack for Vista. Also, the phrase is, "should have been".
XP is still tolerable but gets it support removed this year
XP is far superior in numerous ways to W7. What used to take seconds is now a long, drawn out process of burrowing deep into menus or worse, having to go someplace else to make a change to where you are currently at. Add in that setting a folder view is not consistent across drives, you can't see every program installed through the butchered Start menu or if you mistype a network path through the Search box you can't immediately retype but have to wait for the timeout to occur, and W7 is a classic example of why you never let programmers design your applications.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Windows 7 Still Being Sold On Up To 93% of British PCs
Good old "up to" - how many times have those two little words helped someone weasel out of a corner, or pull in punters from off the street.
PC Pro spoke to several PC builders, with some reporting as many as 93% of recently sold machines were on the older OS
"Some" is most likely journo-speak for "one." And it's probably one that caters to the hardened geek/gamer crowd, both of whom are going to be avoiding 8 for a while yet.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Windows 2000 was also a win.
The ideas behind Windows Vista were sound, they were just badly implemented until about SP2. Windows 7 was Vista done properly.
The difference with Windows 8 is that the whole idea of having a single interface for both tablets and desktops was wrong. It's not that there are some annoying bugs that need to be fixed, the whole specification of it is flawed. For Windows 9, Microsoft will need to either go back to the drawing board, or alternatively release a Windows 7.1 that brings any new under-the-hood stuff to the Windows 7 UI.
If MSFT keeps screwing with their licensing terms, ala Office 2013 for us folks who aren't connected all the time, I won't be buying it so no worries.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
There is no harm in trying to look the same but the desktop overlooks the fact that hardly anybody has a touch screen monitor and not many people are likely to get one whilst they sit vertically on the desk.
It makes sense in a tablet or phone format but if you have a separate keyboard you may as well have a separate mouse and this makes the whole touch interface redundant.
Win 7 was, and is, great. It does what it's supposed to with some flaws but flaws that are easy to live with.
Windows 2000 was also a win.
In terms of quality at release, Windows 2000 is unmatched by any other version of windows save perhaps 3.51. All the problems with Windows 8 seem to lie in the interface, which differentiates it from other hated versions of Windows. It's a shame Microsoft can't admit failure in a timely fashion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But the idea is to have a single interface for tablets, computers and *phones*.
So that brings the idea from "wrong" into "brain-fucked stupid."