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Windows 8 Killing PC Sales
yl-roller writes "IDC says Windows 8 is partly to blame for PC sales suffering the largest percentage drop ever. 'As if that news wasn't' troubling enough, it appears that a pivotal makeover of Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating system seems to have done more harm than good since the software was released last October.' According to a ZDNet article, IDC originally expected a drop, but only half the size."
There hasn't been a damn thing in the last several years worth upgrading for. Gamers and developers aside, there has been nothing at all interesting happening in the PC world.
I'm still on a 2.0ghz C2D laptop and had no intention of upgrading anytime soon.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Wasn't Microsoft blaming the actual manufacturers for low sales at the start? Are they aware that it's actually their own fault yet?
According to the original data, Apple sales dropped 7.5% as well. 's good to see that Windows 8 is killing Apple as well!
Back in the Windows ME days there were no viable options for business to go to, except for NT which many were already using. They can't afford a colossal mistake every other OS release anymore. At this rate, they'd be better off keeping Windows 7 for twelve years, or however long XP went without a replacement. At least then they wouldn't be losing market share.
Over and over again? It's the same as what IBM did with the PS/2 MicroChannel in the '80s and Intel with Itanium in the early 2000's.
Just because you have majority market share doesn't mean you can treat your customer base like a cattle drive. They have to be coaxed, not ordered to move. Show them the mountaintop, but also show them how they can migrate with minimal disruption to their applications, data and working style.
Win 8 isn't killing PC sales. Tablets and the fact that most people use their computers for internet and email means you don't have to upgrade your computer every couple years. I still use 6-7 year old computers for everyday use if I need a new one I can go buy one for 3-4 hundred. I don't even use windows so for me and most of my friends and relatives the new computer doesn't even get to boot windows for the first time.
An "important note" at the bottom of the ZDNet article explains that much of this drop is caused by the rise of convertible tablet PCs that run a PC operating system, which IDC counts as tablets, not PCs. Gartner appears to count them as PCs if they run a PC operating system, not a smartphone-derived, all-maximized-all-the-time operating system like iOS or Android.
If Windows isn't working, how about trying something else guys?
The answer is staring them in the face: Set up a foundation, share the expenses of development of a Linux desktop (Ubuntu or Mint).
Ubuntu/Mint is fine, it's just making sure the manufacturers are using all compatible hardware (or writing a driver for the odd device).
Prerelease only to consortium members.
It's either that, or sink on the M$ ship.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
This is funny because GNU/Linux is actually doing really really well...
All those tablet devices being used to surf the web, check emails etc. Those would have been laptops, in some cases full PC's, now they're tablets. And whereas I use to have a laptop running BBC IPlayer, now I run the Android version on a TV stick. It's not that Windows 8 is killing the PC market, the PC market is stuck in a rut and is decaying naturally. It's that Windows 8 isn't good enough to rescue it.
It's like landlines and mobile phones. People said mobile phones would be added to the landline, and people would keep the landlines. But that didn't happen, once people became reliant on the mobile, they stopped getting the landline. Same effect.
Surfing the web is surfing the web, checking email is checking email, the use is the same, these markets heavily overlap.
Windows is bad enough, but Windows + Ballmer is a disaster. MS could save itself with some new management.
Organization? You must be joking..
That's not to say that I don't think they have a point.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Ho hum, another article about windows 8 or pc sales or both
Lets just cut to the chase
MS is evil
People don't buy PCs as often anymore
something about tablets
standard reply about walled gardens
standard reply about rooting your android device ignorning 90% of the consumer base
NEXT
Sure, I change my OS regularly, but that because it's fun, free, and easy to try out new Linux distros. The only hardware upgrade I can see coming is a bigger hard drive, and maybe a new keyboard. Everything else came to me via Craigslist or was on sale at Staples three years ago when I last needed a new system.
My girlfriend is still running XP on her system because there is literally no reason why she would have needed to upgrade, XP runs Office and e-mail and XChrome just fine. Next year we bite the bullet when support ends, but even then I'll hunt up a Windows 7 OEM disc.
Three Squirrels
Pardon my retail ignorance, but the manufacturers can't just put Windows 7 on the machines? Personally, I build my own computers so I put whatever OS on them I want and sometimes that's Xubuntu.
You can fix Windows 8 by adding Classic Shell or something similar, and then it acts a lot like 7, and you can avoid TIFKAM. But Microsoft never admits to a mistake. They are probably doubling down on it in Blue, rather than fixing it. It's a sure sign of too much monopoly power.
So if you need a new PC, then it's possible to live with 8, but it's true that PCs don't get obsolete as quickly as they used to. Unless you are a hard-core gamer and need the fastest performance, a 4-year-old system is likely to suffice. Especially on the desktop, which is easy to upgrade. Laptops are more likely to physically wear out, though some well-made ones last a long time. Mine's over 6 years old, runs XP, is on its fourth battery, and the keys are worn down, but it still works pretty well.
Both my parents have computers that are aging and now do 90% of their browsing, emails etc on the tablets I have given them. Windows 8, while a good idea was poorly implemented. There isn't any reason to upgrade to a new Laptop/Desktop for it and its rubbish as a tablet Operating system. After using it for 12 months its a jarring experience to use on the desktop, and using the Win 8 pro tab at work, having to drop back to desktop mode to do most of the tasks makes the tablet just seem pointless if you need keyboard/mouse to do most of your work. I'm not surprised Windows 8/Desktops/Laptops are failing because when it comes down to it, Microsoft and the OEM's are unable to give us compelling reasons on why we actually should buy one, or how they will make our lives better.
I just bought windows laptop(in fact, I am typing this post from it). It is plain vanilla HP laptop - $400 from BestBuy, Core i3, 2nd generation. No touch screen.
So, I went through and installed all of my software: MySQL, Visio, Visual Studio 2012, Intel Compiler Suit ..........
Now when I press "windows" button on keyboard...... I have to scroll to the right, in order to get big ass list of shortcuts........ why ???
"This is horrific news for PCs," said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. "It's all about mobile computing now. We have definitely reached the tipping point."
Call me back when a tablet can run my TF2 flawlessly and when I can upgrade it by changing parts instead of buying an entirely new tablet. How many times are they gonna call the PC market dead before they realize how essential the PC market is?
I have had Windosws 8 since before it came out (somehow my school got it a couple days before release...) and I can honestly say that I wouldn't recommend this to anybody. The new start menu, without a touch screen computer, is absolutely ridiculous. I found that I would go to my desktop as soon as I started my computer, and never use the start menu, ever. Sure, startup is fractionally faster, but the interface I would give a score of 2/10. I had to make desktop shortcuts just so I don't have to navigate through the cryptic menus just to shut down or restart. Speaking of the interface, Microsoft should seriously fire the people who are responsible for this garbage. Windows 7 was amazing. It was fast, sharp, and easy to use. Now Microsoft is going in a different direction, trying to make Windows 8 too easy. Like seriously, how the fuck am I supposed to use these native apps on a day-to-day basis? The interface is obnoxiously minimalist and is WAY too much hassle for the everyday user. I have a nice chuckle every time I see the Windows 8 commercials on tv about using their Surface Pro's in a work environment. No person in the technology industry in their right fucking mind would buy one of those to use for work. Soon, I'm gonna downgrade to Win7, and I recommend everyone else to do the same. Not surprised at all that Win8 pc sales are down, it only makes sense. Shitty product = shitty sales.
There have been what like four good games released recently? Borderlands 2(also on consoles), Torchlight 2, Skyrim(consoles too) and Natural Selection 2. Now maybe Bioshock Infinite (haven't gotten around to it yet) but that is not exactly a large selection of quality and doesn't do much for people who enjoy thinking games (a large portion of PC gamers).
Perhaps it was an almost total lack of touch enabled, Windows 8 optimized hardware at product introduction and for some time after.
any common idiot could have predicted this, too bad microsoft only listens to extraordinary idiots. they scared the end-user away and even more advanced users didn't realize how easy it was to ditch Metro. Yet even ditched it's annoying that it's there. Win 7 didn't need to be replaced, they've got a good thing here. Why in hell they thought a PC needed a tablet interface will be a question people ask for a long time to come. anyway, a mouse is better than fingers unless you have to lug the thing around in your hand.
If I buy a new PC (I did buy one instead of build last year before windows 8 came out- for a quick gift to a friend in need) I would not hesitate to buy one with Windows 8 on it. I know how to install a program that'll make it friendlier for every day use. Or if I want I can put 7 back on it or a linux distro if I want. But for the average person, I see nothing but frustration from people.
PC makers need to give options. 7 or 8 should be available. People will say that Linux should be available too, and I won't disagree, but I don't think it will give an overall good user experience from most PC makers. But that's not what this is about.
This is about MS forcing vendors to force their customers to be guinea pigs for windows 8's new paradigm that totally sucks. Sales are down? GOOD. Maybe they'll get the message:
THE NEW WINDOWS 8 GUI SUCKS.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
"People won't switch to Linux/Android/whatever because they don't want to have to learn a new system."
Microsoft: "I know, let's make everybody learn a new system!"
Suddenly they've given their core customers a reason to look at their competition that they didn't have before.
Press the Windows key then type vis and see what doesn't pop up.
Why own a large device pretending to be a smartphone, when you can just use a smart phone?
I mean, if it were set up out of the box to be used for business and, well, PC gaming out of the box, then I'd be interested in a system with Windows 8... but instead, it's an OS that is very ashamed of being a PC, and every time I access it's configuration, I'm going to see whole-screen interfaces, and other throwbacks to pre-3.1 Windows concepts that phones need to use, and for some reason are pushed everywhere in Windows 8.
Why would I use a system that is reluctant at best, to serve as an OS the way I'd like to use it? I'll stick to Windows 7 for my PC games, and I can't imaging any of the businesses I've ever worked at wanting to switch to 8 either.
But I'm sure there's some folks that like Metro. I mean, Microsoft had to be focus testing with someone - I just can't imagine who'd select that interface as the better to use.
Ryan Fenton
Duh?
Nothing like an article stating the obvious. MS just won't give in- they continue to ignore users, businesses, reviewers, just about everyone. Treating your customers like enemies is not good for your business, MS. You are not quite the monopoly you once were.....
a mouse is better than fingers unless you have to lug the thing around in your hand.
Then use the mouse when your tablet PC is on your desk, and use the touch screen when it is undocked and in your hand.
The PC market has reached a point of saturation where, for 99.9% of the folks out there, the hardware in front of them is more than adequate for their needs (email & browsing, docs and spreadsheets). I haven't had a desktop PC for about 8 years, using first a Satellite laptop and now an Asus netbook with XP. Still even runs Word and Excel 97 (installed from CD, both softwares work and are completely adequate for my needs).
Tell me why I need a PC again? And while you're at it, tell me also why in hell I would need Windows 8? Or even Office 2010?
The PC is the wagon wheel of the computing world. It did it's job, but save for niche markets the average non-gamer doesn't need or want one and so it very naturally is fading into history. That's how it goes.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
I haven't run Win 8 and lots of folksI know haven't either. We aren't MS haters - we're pragmatists and pretty much comprise a group of users who have used every MS OS (OK Nobody ran ME) since DOS. If a company can produce a product so crappy that it does that it really makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with management.
The $64000 question is what does MS do now? The best I can think of is make the Win 8 'Aqua' style interface better - hell throw the Windows 7 UI in there. That way they could keep working on the tile based stuff but not alienate everyone.
Unfortunately they've pretty much managed to alienate a huge number of users.
I use Linux entirely for work, and Win 7 on my machines at home when I'm not running Linux. I'm thinking about a new laptop for home but don't want Windows 8. I think I'm actually going to just do Linux on that laptop now steam is available for Linux. If I need Windows I'll run it in a VM. I'm curious who else has come to the same conclusion. Windows in a VM and Linux as your main OS because Win 8 seems so crappy.
Oh damn! I thought I was just back in 2006 and Vista was released...
Big surprise!
"That's right...I said it."
Stop this please. You don't need any addons to make win8 work in desktop mode. You don't need to use any of the metro apps either.
My laptop has win8, I only use it in desktop mode and works just like win7 did. All win7 programs work the same way. In fact it's nice to have the extra space from removing the start button on the taskbar. The only difference is that you get a full screen "start menu" when you hit the windows key. You can still type the name of the app or document just like in the star menu in win7. When it comes up, just hit enter to launch it. Same as win7.
I read reviews and scare mongering like your post, and was scared of win8 when when it arrived with my new laptop. But it's all unfounded sillyness. Win8 looks better and is faster than win7 and works in desktop mode just like win7 did.
Seriously? And what happens when people look at the competition? They see nice enough systems that don't run the fucking programs people want and need.
No matter how many times people here want to say it, it just isn't true: You can't take a mainstream user from Windows to "Linux/Android/whatever" without a LOT of pain, hand holding, etc., unless that person is such a lightweight user that s/he lives in a browser.
I've tried numerous times over the years to escape from MS Hell, having been a user of their crapware since MS DOS 1.0, and it's always the same story: Linux has a long list of great attributes and one hideous flaw, the lack of application (and sometimes driver) support.
Until that situation changes, MS still has its customers by the short hairs, and they aren't letting go.
But Microsoft never admits to a mistake. They are probably doubling down on it in Blue, rather than fixing it. It's a sure sign of too much monopoly power.
The same can be said about GNOME, though they don't exactly have monopoly power. I think developers just think it's more fun to make "cool" new stuff, than to keep polishing the old reliable, usable stuff.
Plus MS needs the gimmickry to drive sales. Who would shell out money for W8 if it was perceived as W7 with some problems fixed?
What's driving most of the annoyance is the fact that software is treated the same way consumer electronics always has been. We foolishly think we have to have the latest and greatest, and the vendors are more than happy to oblige our stupidity.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Last year (2012) my company purchased over 2,000 laptops for our sales force
Every year my company purchases about 1,500 to 2,500 laptops
This year my company decides to NOT purchase any laptop, simply because the laptop companies (Acer, Asus, Lenovo, HP, Dell( insist on putting Win 8 in laptops with i7 CPU
Due to the software that our sales force uses we need to run Windows on the laptop - but when we were looking for i7 powered laptops with Win 7, all the laptop manufacturers told us that they have to put Win 8 on their products because Microsoft says so
So, we decided to not purchase any laptop this year
I know, 2,000 laptop is not much, in the whole scheme of things, but I also know that my company is *NOT* the only company which decides against buying computers with Win 8 inside
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Actually I tried Windows 8 for months without the addons too, but when I installed the free one (forgot the name) I was amazed at how much less horrible it was to use. Fortunately I only boot into Windows when I really need to, which is very rarely.
And over a flurry of "RTFM Luser!" postings everyone will switch to Apple.
You still don't get it. The problem with Linux is the gigantic egos, unhelpfulness and fractured inconsistent apps. It's the polar opposite of a consumer friendly system.
Forgive the eschatological excess, but if the age of the MS PC should draw a close, then, at last, we have have the much prophesied YotLD. Not that everyone will then use a Linux desktop, but a great many of those left using desktops may be users of Linux (i.e. IT guys, programmers, people who have very particular needs and must customize, hobbyists, open sources aficionados, etc.).
PCs are now like refrigerators. They are not obsolete, they are (for most people) essential household appliances. Just like your refrigerator, you don't need to replace your PC every year. Your PC may not last 10-15 years like your 'fridge, but 5 years is perfectly reasonable. Just like your 'fridge, you only need to replace your PC if it breaks, or goes out of style.
The "death of the PC" has been overhyped. The PC isn't dead, it's just mature. Sales will stabilize at a sustainable level, barring some radical innovation. I'm a little afraid that people are really going to screw up the refrigerator trying to make it into something it isn't, trying to solve a problem that is unsolvable.
OBTW, this will happen with mobile devices also. Mobile devices get beat up a little more, so they will tend not to last as long, but in the not two distant future the only legit reason to upgrade your phone/tablet will because the old one broke. I know several people still using the iPhone 3GS (4 years old).
We need a MINIMUM of a quad core 8GB machines just to run some basic business type apps what with the scanners, agents, asset checkers, license checkers, security tools, encryption, VPN, Url filters, DLP and virtual engines. And since everything is written against some weird ass one off back level and DIFFERENT Java, we have to run a bunch of different Javas too. And half our web apps don't run in FF only IE, so.....both.
Yaaay fucking corporate standards!!!!!!
But I couldn't find a Windows 7 laptop anywhere, even in clearance. So I'm waiting until Windows 9. Or maybe I'll buy a linux laptop.
I find that most people I switch to Linux love it. I do make sure before I switch them that they don't have any windows specific programs that they need or play games. If people just web browse and facebook then really they hardly notice anything except that the computer runs much better and faster and it doesn't require a re-install every couple of months. I'm talking computer illiterates here too. I have advised some to stay on windows though, mostly gamers.
I would think people who are still on Windows would be more willing to take a look at getting a Mac if they have to learn a new UI anyway. Although I'm sure it wouldn't hurt Linux, but I don't see a mass exodus of Windows users to Linux.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Except Linux Desktop systems have never approached the ease of use of Android or iOS for the home/casual user.
Some of this is just the nature of window systems, multitasking, exposed filesystem, etc. It's all too complicated for people who are just looking for their facebook.
Back when there were only desktops and laptops, that's what people spent their money on. Now that there are more computing options people only have so much money to spend and so people are spending their money on alternative computing options so of course PC desktop and notebook sales are going to suffer.
I really think that the tag line here is a misnomer, Windows 8 is not the sole reason for the "worst decline in sales ever". Don't get me wrong, the new Windows 8 UI is terrible and the worse thing since Vista (maybe even worse) but with one of the many Start Menu replacements Windows 8 is at the very least usable by the average person.
It is the one two punch of abusive bloatware, and people having many needs met through mobile that have knocked the PC to the ground and then the kick to the face that a 5 year old machine is fine for most people's needs.
Basically everyone who buys a nice machine from wherever boots it up and is presented with a pile of icons and popups that confuse/scare/annoy the crap out of them. Usually the browser is infested with "helpful" toolbars. The search engine has been redirected this way or that. And some crap like Norton pops up and tells them that they are going to die if they don't give them money. The Apple PC market is doing OK and I think that people are willing to pay the huge bucks because they turn the damn thing on and it works, no threats, no weirdness. I am not saying that the Mac is way better but that people would basically be just as happy turning on their Windows machine and being greeted with a default one icon for connecting to the internet unimpeded, no Asus Game world, Trial this or trial that.
Then there is the fact that most people are consumers not generators of content. Thus a tablet or larger screened smart phone will get them all the cat videos they can eat. These smartphones aren't cheap and thus will eat up many people's technology budget.
And lastly there is the point that many people who have a PC of some sort can keep it running and running. If they have a laptop their mobile phone might have reduced their porting it around and increased its lifespan even to the point where they don't care that the battery has 5 minutes of life when unplugged. If they have a desktop then the lifespan is even better seeing that most repairs (if any) should cost less than $100. My mother is using a desktop running Linux that is about 8 years old. She has a nice keyboard, nice mouse, nice B&W laser printer, and a nice monitor so she is quite happy. It runs gmail and can play youtube videos at full screen; an upgrade would be a foolish waste of money.
In the past people upgraded their computers because they had some application that really wouldn't run on their old computer. Now about the only non professional (Photoshop, IDE, etc) application that demands an upgrade is the OS itself. So if you need an OS that can run a browser and some sort of Office Suite then why would you upgrade your OS.
In the past I can remember getting Windows 95 and bouncing around when it booted up for the first time. It was such a vast improvement over 3.1.1. Then when I finally had a machine that could handle 2000 I was happy again. XP waited for a long time until some application or another wouldn't run and then I left the Microsoft embrace so got to largely avoid Vista on. Even with the Mac about the only reason I have upgraded my OS is that the latest versions of XCode wouldn't run on the slightly older versions of the Mac OS.
As for games I just about lost my mind when I finally got a 3DFX card. But if anything gaming is probably the last thing keeping people buying the latest and greatest in the PC market. Personally I have long given up making my PC game friendly. I have an XBox for that.
Personally if I were running MS beyond looking past a world where the OS and office suite drive the bus I would have a super research project where you create the killer app that requires that you have a PC with 100GB of ram and a crazy new processor.
But maybe this whole PC dying thing is missing the point. Way in the past an IBM PC "killed" my commodore 64. And apple seems to be racing, with other, to a smart watch goal. This will mean that your average person will have a computer on their wrist, a computer in their pocket, computers in their car, computers in their work, multiple computers hooked up to their TV, and maybe(or maybe not) a computer on a desk at home. Yet if we scroll back say 13 years to the dot com boom most people had at most 1 computer that they paid well over $1000 for and a home network was exotic.
The sad thing about windows 8 is that they actually could have leveraged their PC dominance to squeeze into the tablet market despite coming to it late. All they had to do is let you toggle between tablet and classic mode. And allow you to run your metro apps in individual windows when you're on a desktop.
- That would have added value for anyone with a wintablet or a winphone by making it practical you to use apps bought for your phone on your PC. Right now, getting sent to the Metro UI is clunky. Desktops are made to multitask. The window paradigm does this better than metro's split screen.
- It would have enlarged the potential market that actually cares about metro apps by making it interesting for established desktop users to buy and use apps from the store as well instead of making desktop users hate the metro UI even more.
- It would have become an actual venue for pc developpers to sell through the store. After all, why limit yourself to apps in your store when people can access it on PC as well. The distinction is artificial. People would actually have wanted to use it instead of having it forced down their throat.
Everybody wins in this scenario. How hard was that to understand ?
What we got instead is what happens when you let the suits have their way. Because when your only experience with a computer is browsing youtube while deciding who you're going to fire today to make the shareholders happy... you don't get it.... ever. Don't even try, you're not mentally equipped to understand that if you want market penetration, you play to your products strengths to make it desireable. If you're trying to force people to change how they work to accomodate you, you're doing it wrong.
One app at a time, full screen only. That is not how I work across my multi-monitor set up. That alone is a deal killer for me.
Could you explain how to open several applications in tiles so I can see a browser window, a spreadsheet and a mail on screen at the same time?
a 2 million+ id user gushing about MS?
what a fucking surprise!
come back when you're not a teenager and/or shill
I don't really think that the term "Post-PC" is accurate.
There are still all kinds of things that PCs have going for them that mobile devices will never be able to out-mode, largely due to the form-factor. The public has clearly voted with their dollars on the whole idea that they should have to completely up-end their desktop workflow because Microsoft feel the need to Justify the Modern UI on larger mouse-driven displays.
When I'm doing actual work or content-creation, I like having information such as select application statuses and the time being conveyed to me in the system tray at-a-glance. I like to keep track of what Applications I have open in the taskbar. I prefer to drive things with text-based menus and icon-driven UIs. Smaller icons the better. I like having multiple windows open at once, accross multiple monitors. I like using keyboard shortcuts and extra mouse buttons. This is due to not only familiarity with this setup, but also because I'm yet to see a better alternative for when I'm doing multiple things. I also personally find that when my hands are down on a desk interacting with a mouse and keyboard, it's largely unintuitive and pointless reaching up and driving my desktop screen with a finger... Which seems to be the new trend.
In short, I'm still unconvinced as to why, on a desktop, I should have to embrace a UI paradigm that works great for a ten-inch tablet device, but falls totally short of the mark when it comes to my desktop workflow. You need more justification than "Because tablets.", which Microsoft just hasn't gotten.
There's going to be natural attrition as people use tablets for coffee-table social networking and content-consumption, but PCs will never go away completely. We'll spend less time on them and they'll become more niche, but there's always going to be a place for a device (even if it's just a big screen/keyboard and dock for your uber-smartphone) in that form-factor. Windows 8's tablet side however, on the desktop, is ugly, dumbed down and conveys less information. It makes multitasking harder.
Evolve and improve the desktop paradigm and people will upgrade their desktops. Simple.
People don't have money, so they don't buy PCs. More about this after the film.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People use Windows not because they love MS, or because it's great, but rather because it provides a product that is good enough. Not the best, nor the cheapest, but a familiar, relatively convenient, and easily customized product.
Suddenly MS sees Apple/Android eating its lunch. So it reacts by opening an App-Store, pushing the Surface tablet, and changing the OS to make the PC look like a tablet.
The result: Windows is now unfamiliar, inconvenient, and frustratingly inflexible. So people are unimpressed and businesses are saying no. It's like MS is trying to make everyone believe "see, we're really just a tablet now, so you see, you don't really need that Apple/Android after all..."
Give me a break.
My laptop has win8, I only use it in desktop mode and works just like win7 did.
I'm sorry, my /. interpreter may be broken .. are you saying that you wish you hadn't upgraded?
I spotted a 23" phone at CES.....
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/01/15/prototype-intel-core-i7-phone-platform-spotted-and-tested/
(Note: Yes that is me...)
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Core Windows interface up to Windows 7 has been the same for approximately 20 yrs.
We always had the choice to tweak the interface to be Win 95 like, and a starting point, also known as a Start Button, made sense.
I can understand that Microsoft wants to 'be cool' and compete against Apple and Android
But even the Apple phone/tablet interface is NOT the same as their Apple PC counterpart
Microsoft could have just improved on Win 7 in terms of performance and power management and add on features for mobile use, such as swiping and other mobile related events
Baby steps
Instead, they went bumbling in with Windows 8 in a bad way, not anticipating that they would be met with fierce resistance.
Here's something which seems to elude Microsoft and other software companies.
There is TONS of software out there for many platforms.
And for the most part, if you have hardware that is less than 5 yrs old, chances are, your hardware specs a good for most stuff available.
It takes a while to get a stable OS, all things considered, such as service packs, etc.
So once you have it, that's it.
You don't want to muck with it.
It's that simple.
Upgrading is normally only an option when you have no choice.
And as consumers we do.
We can have Win XP/Vista/7 working with our devices such as Samsung/IPhone/etc.
We don't want to relearn a new interface for using our PCs.
If Microsoft had first and foremost incorporate mobile aspects, while allowing the traditional interface to still work, Windows 8, wouldn't be such a big deal, more people would have embraced it.
Oh well.
Soon Microsoft is going to point and say that that Desktop PCs are failing because CONSUMERS don't want desktops any more, they want "phones" and tablets instead. When the fact is that nobody happens to want desktops WITH WINDOWS 8.
Go back to the beginning of what made the IBM PC great. It was spreadsheets, databases, word processing, and boring financial programs. These were, and still are very much critical to businesses. These needs are not going away!
An operating system package that is only optimized for looking at LOLCats and clips of Family Guy, is not going to go over well with any business that has a clue. And Windows Blue shows Microsoft has no intention of backing down on this.
So what happens when you need to do a desktop oriented tasks and there are no desktops left because Microsoft killed all desktops?
Suddenly they've given their core customers a reason to look at their competition that they didn't have before
Yeah .. Shuttleworth was probably bribed.
Look, PC sales are on the decline. This we all know. So MS decided to tackle tablets in a big, audacious way in order to increase their relevance in the post-PC era. And it might have worked...
HAD THEY NOT BEEN SO ARROGANT AS TO REMOVE THE GODDAMNED START MENU AND FORCED OLD PC HARDWARE TO USE THEIR TOUCHSCREEN UI!
Seriously, how difficult would it have been to do a quick hardware check upon install and say "hmmm, it looks like you have a keyboard, mouse and non-touchscreen monitor. Let's make Metro an icon on the classic desktop and boot to explorer.exe with a mouse-friendly start menu by default."
Personally, I think Windows 8 offers several welcome improvements over Win7. I installed the OS, downloaded and configured Classic Shell, and haven't so much as whiffed a Metro screen in at least 2 months on my PC. It's great for me, but I'm not your average Windows user! The masses are clueless and if you give them enough reason to dislike your product, you're doomed.
MS, you successfully borrowed Steve Jobs' arrogant decision-making skills, but failed to deliver on the other half of the equation: an overall better user experience.
is it "partially to blame" or is it "killing sales'.
or you can continue to freeload off that atrociously thrown together hacked up crap that has become linux.
nothing is more repulsive than an obstinate bunch of parasites.
is now the vast majority of non-business computing users.
They want:
(1) Web (95% of needs)
(2) Office (5% of needs, and even then, only at a very rudimentary level)
Didn't you notice when all of the big-box stores shut down and the software aisles at the Wal-Marts and Costcos got emptied out? Yes, there was a time when people had a shelf full of CDs and DVDs that they wanted to install on their "next computer."
Those days are long gone.
The baby boomers in my extended family are happy to be free of the complexity. They tell "remember when" stories about how hard computing used to be, and how confusing computers were before you could just do everything that you needed to do online, in Firefox (most of them switched to Firefox during its heyday and are now solidly married to it, even if other options have become competitive). Most of the things that used to be standalone applications they now do online:
- Email (Google replaces Outlook)
- To-do (Todoist, Toodledo, etc. replace Outlook)
- Calendaring (Google replaces Outlook)
- Contacts management (Google replaces Outlook)
- Personal data management (Evernote replaces the file system)
- Reference (Wikipedia replaces endless varieties of CD-ROM encyclopedias)
- Entertainment (Social Gaming and YouTube replace CD-ROM gaming and multimedia)
- Document editing (Google replaces Office)
- Digital photos (Flickr/Facebook+Smartphone replace assorted "old" consumer digital photo apps+USB digital camera)
- Music (Pandora replaces MP3 collections on hard drives)
I teach a bunch of college kids at local U, and have done now in two states over the better part of a decade. In 2006, kids showed up with Thinkpads. Now they show up with iPads.
In 2006, departmental policies often still required hardcopies of submitted work and installs of university-site-licensed educational software. These days, assignments are required to be submitted through online portals (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.) in digital form and devices like iPads are the *suggested* college study equipment. The Real Serious students get a bluetooth keyboard and the Pages app, but most of them type onscreen into Google Drive to do their work.
Seriously, the applications argument is dead—just like the PC. Specialized fields and roles will still require it, but I suspect that over time even those will go the way of the dodo as mobile devices get more and more processing power and more and more users move to them—which will tend to produce as web apps or mobile apps those things that used to be PC apps.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
That's pretty amazing!! I wonder what else we can blame on Windows 8. Maybe the sequester!
Works exactly the same way it did in Windows 7 -- right-click on taskbar and choose "Show windows side by side".
What programs? Their web browser? Word processor and spreadsheet? Graphics viewers and editors? VOIP software? Right, because Linux doesn't have any of those things.
And hardware support has gotten *way* better. The only hardware that doesn't work, at least sufficiently, is fringe and obscure.
And guess what? Most users *are* lightweight and spend all their time in the browser.
Windows 8 takes a decent interface and hoses it up. But Microsoft had to change something to keep you on the upgrade treadmill. It's not about better, its about money. Told ya so.
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
I switch my laptop to linux now and again. The biggest trouble I find with it is the installing applications can become hacky and doesn't always work out. I suspect its because of my lack of knowledge regarding linux. I think you are right that computer illiterate people have an easier time with getting on linux. The basics on linux have become really solid. It like there is a parabola where illiterate and highly skilled people find linux usable.
Apple's Mac shipments were down 7.5% in this same study, Lenovo was up 13%...Dell and HP were the blunt of the fall. Sure Windows 8 is not loved by consumers, but with time it will improve...but that's not the culprit here. The culprit the massive slow down that is currently plaguing China. Microsoft has some ground to make up, but this analysis is heavily flawed when you look at the broad picture.
I wish ReactOS was better/more developed. I'd love to "upgrade" to ReactOS when XP is no longer supported. I've pretty much had it with Microsoft, but I do like XP.
... We can sing "Ding Dong the witch is dead" not because of Thatcher, but 'cause Microsucks files for chapter 11? A Dom Perignon is waiting for that special occasion.
For myself and most, it has to do with the stagnant technology advancements, whether to the tune of manufacturer cost (both justified and unjustified) or general lack of progress.
A prime example is motherboards. Most manufacturers feel consumers have no reason for all usb 3.0 and SATA 6 ports running from the same chip, instead opting for multi 3rd-party chipset solutions even on the latest hardware. To manufacturers, this validates extending the life of current tech by giving consumers convenience to anticipate in future iterations. To me, the manufacturers are demanding I put off my upgrade purchase until I can purchase a motherboard with unified ports, running from a single, stable chipset rather than run the risk of a multi chipset system malfunction.
I'd very much like to prove PC hardware still has a market despite all the tablet sale drum beating, but I'll first need viable, stable, quality products to invest in that I can be certain will last me at least as long as my Core2 build has.
Not trying to troll here, but basically you're saying that Linux works best for people who have the barest of uses for a computer. That's not a ringing endorsement for the power of a modern Linux distro.
The reason I have decided to give up converting to Linux after 10 years of on/off attempts, is that it's just good too many drawbacks as a desktop OS... for me and my wife at least. She'll NEVER convert because she's a teacher and requires MS Office for comparability, which is paramount for her purposes. Please don't suggest LibreOffice - it's nice but compatibility with MS formats still sucks and I have ample evidence to back this up. She also likes certain games (not many, just a couple of popular PC games) and they simply won't run in Linux. I could run Wine, but once this happens I start asking myself what I'm gaining from doing so...
wait, you don't like the start menu button because it takes up space, yet you tolerate the full screen metro bullshit? In fact, the start menu itself takes almost no space at all unless it's accessed.
Having search boxes on menus and windows is just a crutch that demonstrates the design sucks. The point is to see what you're looking for and interact with it in a graphically intuitive way. Switching back and forth from keyboard and mouse (or touch) is clunky, slow, and stupid.
Stop this please. You don't need any addons to make win8 work in desktop mode. You don't need to use any of the metro apps either.
Agreed almost 100%.
The only difference is that you get a full screen "start menu" when you hit the windows key.
Exactly. But...
a) The default start menu out-of-box is a cluttered mess of live-tile garbage. It only takes a few minutes to turn off the live tiles and/or remove most of them from the start menu outright, and after you do this the start menu is perfectly fine. It might make some sense on a tablet, it might be reasonable on touch capable laptop, but its just silly on a full on desktop.
b) Its annoying to HAVE to hit the windows KEY. A lot of people are used to there being a button. And there is really no good reason whatsoever for there NOT to be a "start" button on the desktop taskbar. If you are using the desktop, then you are using a mouse. If you are using a mouse then there should be a button for an important function like this. So all I want is a button to launch the full on start screen. I know I don't actually NEED it, I know I can use the key or I can even use the hot corners, but a lot of the win8 grief would be alleviated if they'd just given people a button to push.
c) Hot corners -- just SUCK. They are ok on a touch device, but not on a desktop. They aren't intuitive when using a mouse.
And worse, they are a royal PITA to operate when the desktop isn't "full screen" such as when running in a Virtual Machine, or a Remote Desktop window, or when there are multiple monitors and the "corners" aren't necessarily the corners. Apple started this nonsense and OS X is my LEAST favorite OS to remote into by far -- seems a large number of people have the dock set to autohide and getting it to show up remotely can be a pain, not to mention the window min/max animations are always horridly laggy... but i digress.
Try turning off UAC and see how the build in apps work.
that MicroSoft is about to acquire with it's new, always connected Xbox, will suppress Windows 8 sales even more?
Computers just aren't as fast without the turbo button.
Windows 8 looks better than Windows 7?
The flat style is boring as fuck. There's no depth or "pop" to the interface anymore. It's completely lacking in style. You might argue that this is a good thing but to be honest I enjoy a pretty interface, particularly if I'm going to be spending the majority of my working (and part of my spare time) in front of the GUI.
Now it's all dull and lifeless.
CPU, memory, and metadata filesystem advances aside, the thing which would make me upgrade to a new laptop is an OLED display (matte not gloss coating please). The new LG 55" TV is coming out soon, and so the tech is definitely ready.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
I spoke to someone at BustBuy as I needed a **paid* version of office and they told me Microsoft came in ordered them to destroy all copies of Windows 7 and Office 2010 with the trash compatctor! Not waited but actually physically destroyed anyone wanting a non ugly bright white ribbon or Metro UI!?
I paid an inflated price as Aamzon and NewEgg or greedy bastards and raising the prices as supply becomes more limited. I tried oFfice 2013 and it was so horrible it was well worth the extra cash. Why what did MS do so wrong?
It is plain bad with no UI testing. Just anti skuemorphism elitests who design the graphics in management I swear. It took over a week to finally get a non pirated version of Office 2010.
I now join with XP loyalists who fear change. MS knows they have crap and are frankly doing everything in their power not take your money to force feed new ways of doing thing fed by the elitists who hate deisgn that worked well previously in order to differentiate from Apple.
http://saveie6.com/
Worry that Windows 7 installed machines would become unavailable, and worry about UEFI or whatever the booting is, got me to replace my pretty old desktop which only ran Linux because Windows stopped booting for some reason, with a $425 ASUS. I violated the warranty to put a cheap nVidia graphics card in and to repartition the disk to run Ubuntu as well (the new Unit stuff, unfortunately similar to Windows 8), and ran decrapifier on Windows. Only problem is that the sound is very quiet (in both systems) which is probably a hardware problem, and stupid Windows does not recognize my serial keyboard unless I also leave a USB keyboard plugged in (the serial keyboard works for the BIOS and for Ubuntu), and Ubuntu has an equally stupid bug where it swaps my monitors until the first time I move the mouse between them.
Any case, I wanted to say that Windows 8 actually *caused* a sale recently. I wonder if people like me, trying to upgrade to the best thing available that did not run Windows 8, caused any increase in desktop sales, slightly offsetting the overall reduction.
I'm more interested in how many people are using PCs - I couldn't really care less how many new PCs are sold.
PCs last longer than they used to. Single-threaded performance isn't increasing anymore and multiple threads aren't being used that much, meaning performance gains are no longer a major reason for upgrades.
Also, a lot of what would have been laptop sales are now tablet sales.
heh start menu, obliterate screen, type in calc screen resumes, that doesn't sound jarring at all
I'm saying that linux is simple to use if you have basic needs. If your needs are more complex then the complexity level ratchets up quickly. If you want to, for example, edit movies on a linux system you need to be more knowledgeable than for a mac os x system. I edit on both and it's much easier on the Mac. Getting my Linux box working involved a lot of configuring but gave good results. Not something for someone without some linux experience.
Web browsers are fine, but...
Word processor/spreadsheet (i.e. office software)? Linux isn't good enough. LibreOffice is acceptable in a crutch, but hardly as good as the MS Office suite with someone who actually needs the compatability and power.
Graphics viewers and editors? Linux isn't good enough. GIMP is rubbish compared to Photoshop - clearly designed by programmers and not people paid to evaluate how end users actually work with software. As for viewers, nothing compares to IrfanView or FastStone in the Linux world.
VOIP software? Linux isn't good enough. Skype is very close, but there are still many bugs with video support and the various Linux sound subsystems that ruin the ease of use when compared to say the Windows version of Skype.
So yeah, Linux does have the software. It's just not good enough and people don't want to have to compromise when there's no need to do so. Hence Linux's pathetic usage on non-mobile platforms.
Windows 8 is a tribute Android/IOS envy. They have a culture arising from Balmer that is fixated on Jobs and Google, and they can't really compete with either.
Gates, Allen, Myhrvold and others realized it was time to move on. They knew they could accomplish things after Microsoft. Balmer knows he was just lucky, and if he tries to do something else it will flop. He has a stranglehold on the company, and he would rather run it into the ground rather then give up his power base.
Why is Snark Required?
Uh, no.
Ever hear of the door effect?
Same thing happens with the fucknig win8 start menu... you open it and forget what you were doing, exactly like you walked through a doorway. It blows your mental stack.
What are the troubles with installing applications? Usually it's just
1. Locate and select the application in Synaptic (or Yast, or whatever system your distribution uses).
2. Click install.
3. Wait until installation is finished.
If it is free, but not in the repository, it's usually
1. Download .deb or .rpm (depending on your distribution)
2. Install it with your package manager (usually just clicking or doubleclicking the repository from your file manager works, if you don't want to use the command line).
If it's proprietary; then it's usually "Start the installer and follow the directions given (usually just click "accept license" once and "continue" several times). Basically the same as in Windows.
It's a long time since I last installed any program which was not available in one of those three forms.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Is MS still blaiming vendors or have they finally pulled their heads out of their ass and admitted to themselves nobody wants the crappy metro shit their peddling?
Who would shell out money for W8 if it was perceived as W7 with some problems fixed?
A lot of people would do that, especially because upgrades of MS OS on the same hardware are nonexistent outside of geeks' basements. If you buy a Wintel box you will buy Win7, Win8, Win9 or whatever MS is selling today. Only geeks know how to get what they need.
But very few people want to shell out the money for Win8 as it is perceived as Win7 with many problems added and with many good solutions arbitrarily removed.
Stop this please. You don't need any addons to make win8 work in desktop mode. You don't need to use any of the metro apps either.
Yes you do.
The only difference is that you get a full screen "start menu" when you hit the windows key.
Unacceptable.
I read reviews and scare mongering like your post, and was scared of win8 when when it arrived with my new laptop. But it's all unfounded sillyness.
Just the constant triggering of charms triggers you can't turn off was reason enough to wipe it and never look back.
Win8 looks better and is faster than win7 and works in desktop mode just like win7 did.
They took all of the aero effects and customization options out so now it looks bland. As far as performance there is no noticable difference here. It got wiped after 2 days for annoying me and providing no additional value.
One could argue that Apple didn't deliver a better user experience either.
Not against anyone that has used an iPad.
But they packaged it in such a shiny package with rounded corners that the user simply didn't care.
If that were true the far cheaper (and equally rounded) tablets would have vastly surpassed the iPad. But instead the iPad maintains a huge lead.
Quite a few of the ipod/phone/pad "interface" things, while different, are absolutely not functional
Just what exactly are you thinking of? Most of the conventions are quite functional. A number are superior to desktops (I far prefer pan/zoom and things like drawing on an iPad).
Desktops are better at some things, yes. But to pretend the iPad is not good at anything is to ignore a world of real-world experience that contradicts.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
it doesn't require a re-install every couple of months.
I can't even think of any time where I've had to do a re-install of Windows. I had a hard drive die on me once, but any OS would need to be reinstalled after that. What are you doing wrong?
According to the original data, Apple sales dropped 7.5% as well. 's good to see that Windows 8 is killing Apple as well!
Even if that number is accurate, the thing to note is that what is killing both is not Windows 8, it's the iPad.
Windows 8 isn't exactly killing PC's. What it is doing is making people say "well if I have to have a system with touch why not buy the most popular one with way more software"?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In all seriousness, I think this is part of it.
How about:
* at least 1600 x 1200 screen resolution with more than400nit max brightness and 75% of sRGB colour gamut?
* a backlit keyboard that is pleasant to type on, and allows one to reach at least 90% of the speed and 110% of the error rate attained on a Cherry MX Blue equipped keyboard?
* an SSD that retains its speed for at least 18 months?
* wifi and bluetooth adapters that approach the advertised speeds, and that don't fail in less than a year?
* batteries that retain 90% of their capacity for at least 18 months?
* USB and video connectors that don't wear out or break after a few hundred insertions?
The user-visible and -tangible parts of computer hardware have been ignored completely by manufacturers (except, partly, by Apple) over the last few years. It's no wonder people are buying tablets instead.
Seriously? And what happens when people look at the competition? They see nice enough systems that don't run the fucking programs people want and need.
No matter how many times people here want to say it, it just isn't true: You can't take a mainstream user from Windows to "Linux/Android/whatever" without a LOT of pain, hand holding, etc., unless that person is such a lightweight user that s/he lives in a browser.
I've tried numerous times over the years to escape from MS Hell, having been a user of their crapware since MS DOS 1.0, and it's always the same story: Linux has a long list of great attributes and one hideous flaw, the lack of application (and sometimes driver) support.
Until that situation changes, MS still has its customers by the short hairs, and they aren't letting go.
Seriously? Where I work the single program that keeps us from all day linux is autocad. We have 50 licenses of autocad 2005 running in xp machines. We do not plan to upgrade as autocad newer versions has nothing more that would justify 4500 Euros for each license. Windows vista doesn't run it. Windows 7 doesn't run it (linux/wine does run a version of it). About drivers, I do have an hp photosmart 7350. Windows 7 does not have a driver and even HP says there is no driver for Windows 7. Linux does have a full feature driver and it has had it since ages. Linux has more drivers than Windows and MacOS, and it has them right from the start when you install it. This is my experience, but then again I am not a gamer.
No difference... replace them when they fail and no sooner (assuming C2D or newer)
Video killed the radio star!
for Preventing Windows From Being a Burden to Developers and for Making Systems Beneficial to the Users.
Consider installing an alternative OS on your desktops. While at first it may seem to be a lot more work, the shared development efforts for the solution to the desktop/tablet duality will benefit everyone. Waiting for Microsoft to make the fix may take forever and leave many unsatisfied with their solutions.
Have gnu, will travel.
Windows 8 is a sell to the general market that looks at something and says, "OMG!" It's designed for the minimalist of users.
Your post is exactly what we should all point to when we say that Windows 8 has surely failed. The *point* of Windows 8 was to get everybody using Metro, and your whole post is about how to disable Metro and get rid of it. That's a failure in almost anybody's eyes.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
imagine a refrigerator company put out a model with just one shelf and priced it 10% less than their previous model.
sure, users could make shelves out of the bits and pieces that came with the refrigerator with some glue the expert users say.. and it uses less energy than the previous model. but your average user is still going to see that all you get is one big hole where your shelves used to be and to fill that one big hole you have to buy food from the refrigerator companies post delivery store. that's what win8 is - nobody wants it in their kitchen, but for a small bedside refrigerator it's not so bad.
MS really fucked up their main market because they perceive it as something they have already locked up - and pursued the "future" of small refrigerators in every room with food they get to rubber stamp on. fucking idiots.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The weird thing is they got it right with Xbox. They didn't try to shoe-horn Windows onto it, nor poison desktop Windows by trying to unify it with Xbox. But when it came to their phone/tablet OS they went full retard.
The really weird part is that the Phone/Tablet OS is actually a separate non-binary-compatible OS, WinRT. So if they had just called it something else, like... oh I don't know... "Metro"... then they could have kept Win8 focused on being as rock-solid as possible, industry types would have raved over the clever new deep core features in Win8 (faster boot, modular configuration, etc) instead of fixating on the failed UI... and raved over the new touch-device UI of Microsoft's new completely separate tablet OS, "Metro".
[Add in clever secure integration with the Phone/Tablet OS, particularly for BYOD corporate networks. Plug'n'play idiot-proof networking between a media-centre/NAS, desktop, xbox, tablet and phone for home users. And introduce a few optional features in Win8 that casually invoke the tablet OS (4eg Metro-fying Win7's existing desktop Gadgets and adding them to IE) without forcing it. Hell, throw in a full emulator/sandbox that can run any of the Tablet apps. And a cloudy version that works in reverse, use your tablet to remote access your desktop apps, ie without needing to be able to run the desktop software on the tablet. And a standard way for touch devices to work as a secondary-screen and third-level input device (independent of mouse and keyboard) for desktops. Minor variation to allow phone/tablet as an extra display/controller for xbox's and media-centres. ... So many gaps they could have filled.]
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
If most Windows 8 PCs booted into Explorer mode, then developers wouldn't be coerced into making Metro apps. And if developers didn't create many Metro apps, Microsoft wouldn't have many apps for their unpopular Windows Phone.
Too right! I love PCs, but I hate Windows 8. Wandered into the stops to use it. Yuck. Horrible. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to (under Windows 7). It convinced me to go out and buy Android tablets instead. Laptop keyboards have all gone chiclet now. There's no reason to stay PC. It's an incredible self-inflected wound which is bleeding every day. Balmer won't admit he f*ed up. Microsoft are going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. It's one thing to copy a competitors idea like they did with the Zune, but it's another to bet their core business on it!
You don't HAVE to hit the windows key. You CAN just click on the corner where start button used to be, there's just no icon. But it works. it DOES, however, display menu icon when you hover to the bottom corner, so it isn't completely hidden!
Bought a laptop for my kid which came with win 8 as only option, hence I had 10+ hours to play around with it. Horrible, also usable... Anyway, even without frustrating user interface, win8 just looks fugly! Who in their clear mind would like to use anything like this. It has zero appeal.
The biggest trouble I find with it is the installing applications can become hacky and doesn't always work out.
That only should happen if you move outside of the package management of the distribution. If you always want the newest and shiniest versions, consider a rolling release distribution like Arch instead of something with fixed releases like Debian and Ubuntu.
I could run Wine, but once this happens I start asking myself what I'm gaining from doing so...
Ahrm....Linux?
Lenovo sales are up; Apple sales are down. Those two facts alone show the problem isn't Windows 8, but then again there's nothing like reinforcing a narrative many here wants to believe no matter what with creative stats anyway.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/if-you-make-pcs-and-youre-not-lenovo-you-might-be-in-trouble/
throw new NoSignatureException();
Seriously? And what happens when people look at the competition? They see nice enough systems that don't run the fucking programs people want and need.
No matter how many times people here want to say it, it just isn't true: You can't take a mainstream user from Windows to "Linux/Android/whatever" without a LOT of pain, hand holding, etc., unless that person is such a lightweight user that s/he lives in a browser.
And ye people are switching to OS X, which has exactly the same problems...
For some users, you are of course right, but for a very large fraction you're completely wrong. What does the average home user do? Email, web browsing, a bit of word processing, etc. - all of which they can do under a variety of competing OSes.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Windows 8 isn't that bad.
Just add the start button back.
http://stardock.com/products/start8/ is my fav but does cost $5, http://www.classicshell.net/ is free.
5 more dollars to put all those "apps" back in a window with an icon on the taskbar http://stardock.com/products/modernmix/
And here is a great article for switching default apps back, getting rid of the swipe screen, etc.http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/software-and-web-apps/how-to-make-windows-8-look-like-windows-7-50009546/
Tell people you are a Consultant and you can charge them to do this stuff for them.
And just when you think you've charged everyone money for fixing what Microsoft broke, Microsoft will do you a solid and sell them all something else they hate and will pay you to "make work like it used to."
Oh and if you think Microsoft is desperate and just burning money to be like Apple, you're right. They are offering a $100 an app for up to 15 apps for college students to write pretty much anything and fill their apps store with crap for Win8. Google for one of their App Camps and make yourself some quick cash.
Agree on c). Hot corners stink with large resolutions and with multiple monitors, especially when your mouse movement is set to ultrafast. Windows 8 (not RT) on a laptop with touchscreen however is really really good.
Sounds like you want a Macbook Pro Retina. My 15" has 1680x1050, backlit keyboard that works. No SSD, but my ex's MBA is still fast after 2.5 yrs. Wifi works at >250 megabit depending on distance to AP over wifi N 5.8, my battery is 18 months old and at 92%.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Make that 21 months old - I purchased in July 2011.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The technological improvements are noteworthy, like a noticeably faster boot time and user experience, support for more devices out of the box, and a better battery management. The UI lift on the desktop is also very pleasing to me; I hated the rounded corners and much prefer the minimalistic flat right-angled corners in 8. But it is not the engineers that are failing to deliver, but business requirements make what they deliver a poor experience.
"Modern" requires rewriting code for a new UI paradigm and there isn't really any compelling reason to do it especially when you have limited developer resources. So, Microsoft forces "Modern" down everyone's throats to get it installed on enough computers to make it an attractive platform for developers. It has worked for them before to bundle venues into new markets with their operating system so they are doing it again. It might work again. Maybe. It may end up taking off as eventually all PCs will have Windows RT installed. But how many people actually use "Modern" is another question. Apple was very happy to publish their app download rates. I wonder when "Modern" will reach 1 billion downloads? Probably a very long time.
The other problem is current 'standards'. (Actually standards is probably not the right word but we'll roll with it)
My brother has been building a new PC but has been going through a living hell; It's given me flashbacks of the Super7 era where you had VIA and ALi chipsets which you had to pick depending on what other hardware you wanted to plug into the motherboard because if you used the wrong one you'd start to get weird glitches.
He's having the same kind of issues at the moment with the Asus i5 mobo and AMD GPU that he has, plus his attempts to get his old tri-boot (On the old PC was XPx32, XPx64 and Kubuntu, and now he is trying to get XPx32, Win7x64 and Kubuntu) working has been nigh impossible; As far as we can tell, it's due to EFI being a dick and somehow changing reported disk geometries or something as they can all be installed and boot but as soon as you boot one of the others the other two stop working.
So far he's managed to get it to work by having all three on separate hard disks plus a 4th with only grub to chainload to the other hdd's but even then Win7 will occasionally crap out or GRUB will stop working for no apparent reason.
I miss the P3/Athlon era - Shit just *worked* back then. Seeing the pain my brother has been going through with his system is just the latest; It seems half the time someone upgrades, they have to go through hoops like thus. It's been a real chilling effect for me; So much so that I've been hacking my Athlon64 7950GT Win98/Win2k install to run modern programs because it seems this is less work than upgrading it!!
(That and I'm still boycotting anything that needs on-line activation; Boo to all you who said you would when XP came out and haven't; The current state of things with steam and origin and windows activations is laid at your feet!)
I do with I could update some of the hardware but OTOH I can still play old games like SystemShock 2 and MechWarrior 3 without weird problems and the boot times are just embarrassingly fast. Win98 boots up faster than the Win7 SSD-equipped laptop I have from work and Win2k is not too far behind!
So a "consumer friendly system" requires all those things, and until Linux gets them, it will never be big on the desktop? You were talking about the Microsoft community when you wrote about gigantic egos, unhelpfulness and fractured inconsistent apps, right?
Gigantic egos? Clearly you mean Steve Balmer, and all the MS fans, who think that anything Microsoft does is perfect and anything else is either too different or a clone of the previous version of a Microsoft product.
Unhelpfulness? I've several times asked for help with a Windows problem. I keep reading that Windows is easy to use, but whenever I ask about doing anything specific, the answer is always "why would you want to do that?" And then there is a certain forum (not sure if it's run by Microsoft, or just really popular with their certified users), that always keep popping up when googling a Windows-related problem. Someone describes the exact problem I have, explains that he's tried the exact same things I also tried, and none of it worked. Then there's a few answers that don't relate to the question, followed by someone telling the person to do exactly the same things he already tried, that didn't work, explaining that will solve it. Always ending with "some name, MVP".
Inconsistent apps? You mean, like F5 is refresh (IE) or run (VS), Alternatively you can refresh with Ctrl-R (IE) which just happens to be start recording a macro (VS). And find is Ctrl-F, except in Outlook it's F4, or you have a localized version of a program, in which case it's Ctrl-B.
The figures are excluding ultra portables, tablets and convertible laptops.
Hard to take these figures seriously when they exclude pretty much all the big growth areas for PC sales.
My wife finally made the move to Linux after she saw her new Win 8 laptop didn't include Solitaire unless she got and used an Xbox live account.
She's happy now with Libre Office, Evolution and Firefox.
Apple started this nonsense
Except that on OS X the hot corners are fully optional. I don't use them myself, for example. I know where to configure them if I ever want to, but like you I just don't see the point and so I don't, and everything works just fine without.
That's the difference. Giving a user options is fine. Forcing the user unto something that you think is great just sucks, because users are different from each other and definitely from the developers.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
And this is the year of the Linux desktop! Yay! /cough...
Seems like we've heard this news before. Every year for the last 20 or so, no?
Hey, phones are fine for quick, casual fiddling around. Linux would be rockstar if they only got the display drivers down pat, but I don't lay out hundreds of dollars for a shiny graphics card just to see its performance turn to mud. Fine, Windows 8 sucks, we knew that already, let's see if Windows 9 actually gets back on track.
They should release versions focused purely on improved security and manageability.
This should have provided the necessary hooks for cloud integration of a users information to cloud services.
MS should mandate the use of SSD for all OS bootups.
Very stupid of MS to embark on a change in user experience. People are now forced to choose between something they dont know (Win8) vs something they dont know (Apple). You can imagine which one they are going to try.
why the heck would you want to do that? that's not what the tiles are for, that's what the desktop is for, and it's only 1 click away from the tiles. :p )
It's not like the tiles are the new interface that will replace the desktop. I see metro/tiles as a newer, fancier, tablet friendly start menu, with some interesting functionality. I'm currently using Windows 8 as is, without addons on my desktop pc, and it was a bit strange in the beginning, but i quite like it now. They can probably make some improvements for people who really need a lot of items in their start menu, maybe the ability to make a tile that opens a new set of tiles, so you can have a recursive system again, but besides that it's good, understandable, and both workable for desktop & tablets (and i don't think you would've wanted to use the classic start menu on a tablet
Mark Shuttleworth should take note.
Thanks for putting the right term to this jarring experience - sincerely appreciated. I knew it was more than just plain aesthetics that made me express such disdain towards the full screen start menu effect.
1. This is exactly the change people don't like.
2. Most people do NOT use their computer by typing the name of the app they want into the search box. Yes, it's rather efficient, but a lot of people just don't do it. They navigate the Start Menu. The "classic start bar" mods allow them to continue using their computer how they've been using it for nearly 20 years, instead of having to learn an entirely new interface or way of doing things.
Vista and 7 added file tagging - which would have been a really big plus for people who have a lot of documents to organise. However it seems MS only implemented it for files that support metadata, rather than baking it into the OS filesystem - so it's useless - at one point it didn't even work for pdf's ... still doesn't as far as I know.
Libraries were also a step in the right direction - but only work for folders - not files. Integration of Windows Search was also another positive step.
Basically I'm talking about a simple DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM. This sort of stuff was and still should be MS Windows strong points - eg giving individual users (mum and dad) and low head count employers workable tools for "office computing". I don't need a fully fledge Library of Congress/British Library database - I do need individual files to appear in multiple locations, with deletion (and possible versioning) control.
They should and could fix that. It's something solid that people who actually need to buy/use computers would appreciate. I would make upgrading make sense.
1680x1050 on a 15" isn't good enough. Lack of SSD these days is an unnecessary performance constraint.
My laptop's older than yours and has higher specs (inc. the 300mbps wifi). It cost less.
Buying a modern PC I'd still avoid Apple. The retina screen is the only thing that's discernably better than non-Apple top end laptops, and it is rather nice. Just not nice enough to disable half my games collection.
Read the last sentence, you dirty fucking troll.
Another money maker would be a brand new PC with Windows XP SP4 on it, with renewed support. Now that would be a money maker for Microsoft.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
I find that most people I switch to Linux love it...
it doesn't require a re-install every couple of months.
Hmm I'd say this issue can actually sometimes be even worse on Linux.
While you may not need to be reinstall it, it will usually request to be updated quite frequently and this is often a hairy process for the non technical.
I have lost count of the number of times where I was asked what was meant when the updater threw up some odd message. Examples include:
"Unable to find expected entry [some component] in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)"
"ERROR:root:Dist-upgrade failed: 'E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks.....'"
"subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 101"
"Could not calculate the upgrade"
or simply a basic can't find that message like: "failed to fetch [some component] 404 error"
Sure, people who post here are often quite able to deal with these kind of messages but my mom certainly can't.
When I wasn't able to get there physically it was often easier to simply ask people to install the latest version from
scratch rather than to update.
Microsoft may be wanting to grind the OEMs into the ground to get rid of them by appearing as a stupid company instead of an evil monopolistic company. When that happens, it can produce hardware on its own, with any restrictions it wants, without fear a competitor will do the same.
Of course, the whole problem with "iPad"-izing the PC experience is that some software vendors are just too big to be browbeaten into doing everything through Microsoft's App Store. AutoDesk, Bentley, Adobe, and others. We just haphazardly rolled out Autodesk's Building Design Suite 2013 to various users in our firm. We had to ship flash drives because it's way faster than shipping 48GB over our WAN. I don't see things like that ever working through the App Store.
Having search boxes on menus and windows is just a crutch that demonstrates the design sucks. The point is to see what you're looking for and interact with it in a graphically intuitive way. Switching back and forth from keyboard and mouse (or touch) is clunky, slow, and stupid.
I don't agree with this at all. if I am at a keyboard it is way faster to hit start, type a few characters and quick search right to the program i want. think vi. if I am on a touch screen, the big buttons make sense w/ my clunky fingers. the start -> search on win7 works more or less teh same way (though not as well), i guess this is only a problem if you are using your computer like it was still xp and hunting and stabbing through menus to run things.
I agree w/ the GP, i don't see what the problem is. I have been running a win8 vm for corp vpn access for some time and find it a bit improved version of win7. As soon as you run a program, you are back to your standard desktop so I don't get why we all have jumped on the IT SUXORS bandwagon.
Windows 8 is really crap as a desktop OS. Why would anyone want a computer with it?
It is also horrible to develop for. MS must realise that software needs to be portable in the modern world. MS specific technologies are a relic from the past. MS needs to stop pushing them.
No one could of foreseen this, except EVERYONE who didn't work at Microsoft. How many posts, re-posts and overall negative comments were released about Windows 8 and the new design. When you have a system that works style wise don't change it.
Back in the Windows ME days there were no viable options for business to go to, except for NT which many were already using.
Wasn't Windows 2000 released before Windows ME?
all at the same time it is
buy out stardocks modernMix (metro)
http://www.stardock.com/products/modernmix/
and make the desktop with a start menu the default on bigger screen displays
Firstly, Microsoft screwed up. They had a big job to do: integrate tablet functionality and desktop use; instead they made 2 separate interfaces instead of one. Looking closer they did not even do that; they tacked on Windows 7 Phone, onto Windows 7, then they took off the command bar, the one familiar thing the happened to get right, and no one is happy--and they wonder why people are still asking for Windows 7.
Secondly, AMD is weak; Intel is sleeping. Neither has much to show us.
Thirdly, Apple is asleep on the desktop because they are making more money people shinny toys.
Fourth, too many companies are copying Apple's designs, many of which are not as practical in the real world. Sharp corners, downgraded keyboards: flash over function.
Fifth, Linux has indeed been hurt by Gnome having partially failed to come up with a tablet-desktop interface. Linux has been hurt by UEFI. The US Federal Trade must stop Microsoft's UEFI, because it is a monopolistic action, or is someone taking money from Microsoft? Yes, I am again questioning the integrity of the FTC; there is no need to read between the lines.
Six, As a distro Ubuntu is untrustworthy, spyware, and corrupt. Unity did divide the Linux community, but perhaps that is what it was supposed to do. Mint is coming up, but they still have a weak presence. I applaud Mint for putting pressure on Gnome, but I wish instead that Gnome would listen to their users. The Gnome's leadership needs to be changed.
Seven, Sales people sell what they want to sell, regardless if it is practical. Slim phone with no battery life: no problem. Tablet with no keyboard: they will sell it. Shinny screen to look at and not into: they will sell it. Slim, shinny, and minimalistic is the emperor's new clothes in computers.
~
Having finished this I am reminded that I cannot even buy they computer I want. I just wanted a 13" computer with a decent video chip and processor, and space for a full-sized SSD, a good keyboard, matte screen, enough battery to run it for a while, and made so it won't break if I look at it the wrong way.
On it, I would rather have Windows 7 than Windows 8, and rather have the interface be more like Windows 2000 and XP, because after that, Microsoft fucked up and bloated their operating system.
Microsoft, Apple, and Gnome, ehem, when you are done playing around, we need to work and do useful things on our computers.
Microsoft: You screwed up. 1+1-1 does not equal anything anyone wants to use.
Dell, why not try stop making flimsy cased crap loaded with annoying bloatware.
HP, stop reinventing the wheel and making strange cased computers just for the sake of differentiation. It would be cool to do a computer with the brown and gold calculator look.
AMD: Add one more FPU to the bulldozer/piledriver unit, and work on the darn integer bottle necks. The bobcat was good, but not updated fast enough. Power efficiency will take time and effort. Show off your GPU compute scores. A chip person had theorized you were might virturalize the whole FPU scenero with GPU cores. It seems like a interesting idea, and I have seen powerpoint slides which show a further GPU+CPU integration than what you have with the APU. If you are going to do something, do it fast--and well.
Nvidia: You crippled your gaming chips for GPU computing so much that GPU computing was weakened as an initiative. Thanks for shortchanging gamers--even after we paid for all the technology you are selling as Quadro cards.
Intel: For a single quad, my one-year-old 2600k is almost as fast as what you are selling, Wake up, and wake me up when you have something better.
Apple round those damn corners, yes Johnny, I am talking to you! Shinny screens are useless in a coffee shop. You are right,: if your customers drop it, they will just buy another. Hire more QA people, and stop making OSX venders rev everything all the time, for each 10.8.4.6.6.2.1.x release, where x is an update to the system that break your vendor's program.
Adobe: You are not g
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Looks like the shills are trying a different tack now; this looks a bit more human. I don't think anyone believed those people that claimed "switching to Windows 8 gave them 64% greater productivity", or whatever.
This.
One of my clients is a rather large international company. Win 8 is not allowed on the network, and nobody is allowed to buy a Win 8 PC without a signoff from IT. In a nutshell, their user testing showed a huge increase in support costs ("Helpdesk, how do I...").
Here's the odd thing - They put the same users (who sturggled with Win8) in front of Linux PCs and the users were much happier, and were able to figure out Open Office, etc. largely on their own. The conclusion was Linux support costs would be higher than Win 7, but less than Win 8. This triggered a fully-funded research project on the costs and benefits of offering a Linux option.
(Warning - car analogy ahead) It's like Toyota deciding to change from steering-wheel-and-pedals to a joystick and buttons, with no other option. What a surprise that users are holding off purchases.
Place nail here >+
Plus you can right click on the bottom left corner where the start button used to be a get a pseudo-start menu that still runs some useful things. I wonder if you can customize its contents via the registry or something...
I was only 28,931 registrations away from having a 6-digit UID
sounds like you wanted a chromebook
I was going to buy a new Lenovo Y500 to take for a year of work abroad. It had everything that I wanted, and was going to pay $900 for a device.
However it was Windows 8 only. Some people had success rolling back to Win7, but I didn't want to dick with it on a brand new computer.
So, I canceled the order and kept my money. Eff Microsoft.
Games are the only reason to have a PC anyway. I did want to get me some Bioshock Infinite goodness, though. :'-(
Just like the stereo volume controls...
My new ad campaign for my store is "Hate Windows 8? So do we. All of our new PCs comes with Windows 7." I've sold A LOT and even more used laptops with Windows 7 lately. Thanks, MS! Of course, when they cut off copies of OEM System Builder Win7 I'm going to hate them.
No, tickle bug. Your /. interpreter blocked you from reading the whole post. You should get a new one.
As far as I can tell, "tablet" to IDC means the processor, storage, screen, and battery are in the same case, but the keyboard isn't. A laptop PC is not a tablet because the keyboard is permanently attached. A desktop PC is not a tablet because the battery and screen are not in the same unit as the PC. Even an all-in-one desktop PC such as the iMac doesn't have a battery in the screen/PC unit.
The point is to see what you're looking for and interact with it in a graphically intuitive way.
That doesn't scale. You can only fit a few dozen things on the screen, and even then you're going to be lost while searching for the one item you need. On the other hand, you can have a vocabulary of hundreds of commands which are accessible simply by calling their name.
Switching back and forth from keyboard and mouse (or touch) is clunky, slow, and stupid.
I agree. And since we can't eliminate the keyboard, as detailed above, better to eliminate the mouse.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And since everything is written against some weird ass one off back level and DIFFERENT Java, we have to run a bunch of different Javas too. And half our web apps don't run in FF only IE, so.....both.
English as she is spoke, Java as she is wrote, and browsers as they be universal...
Improved multi-monitor support is irrelevant on tablets
Since when? It's relevant on tablets with HDMI output, as long as the output doesn't just mirror the internal display.
Personally I thought Windows Media Center in Win7 was a massive improvement over previous offerings. It was also free. Then they made it an extra in Win8.
In addition, SSD support was much better in Win7 than Vista. Those were both "must have" items for me.
There's not a single new feature in Win8 that I know about that I need or even want. I've used it a bit and it seems okay but like most others, I'm not as comfortable with Metro.
I'm guessing Win9 will clean up metro to the point that most people like it.
I didn't obliterate metro. I just don't use it on my laptop, but I see its potential on tablets and touch screen laptops (which mine is not, because I had to have non glossy screen for coding).
My next computer purchase will be a tablet for my daughter who loves to draw and paint. It will be a win8 tablet with pressure sensitive stylus, and that's where win8 wins (no pun intended): it's the same OS running on non touch and touch screen devices. You can use the same programs, not just some feature deprived 99 cent crap from an app store. With a real stylus none the less, the lack of which is a major fail of the idevices and most androids.
Metro is the bridge between touch screen and non touch screen. Best implementation? No. Just like the idevice launch screen and one button interface isn't either. But here's what Microsoft did for you: it gave you the same OS for both, without stripping out the power of desktop programs. How would you have done better?
I used to buy a new laptop or desktop every 3 months. Now I buy I'm only upgrading ram or hard drive occasionally. My "Power House" laptop, a Core i7 with 16gigs of memory is from two summers ago. I have little or no interest in "POWER GAMING" machines. Instead, portability and battery life area far more interesting. Windows 8, who the hell needs to upgrade for that. I broke out old computers which were sluggish on Windows 7 and installed Windows 8 upgrades and they ran beautifully. Even gave them away to people who might have bought new machines otherwise.
:)
These days, I tend to buy new toys like projectors and book binding machines. New PCs aren't that interesting.
That said... when I was in the states two weeks ago, I bought 3 Surface Pros... I should go back and buy 3 more
wait, you don't like the start menu button because it takes up space, yet you tolerate the full screen metro bullshit? In fact, the start menu itself takes almost no space at all unless it's accessed.
Having search boxes on menus and windows is just a crutch that demonstrates the design sucks. The point is to see what you're looking for and interact with it in a graphically intuitive way. Switching back and forth from keyboard and mouse (or touch) is clunky, slow, and stupid.
He's saying that the Start Button takes up space, even when he's not using it. The Start Screen only takes up space when he's using it, so it's no big deal; it goes away once it's no longer being used.
Switching back and forth from the mouse and keyboard is stupid, that why you should keep your hands on the keyboard.
I upgraded from a C2Q to a i7 with 16GB ram and a small 128GB SSD for boot, costed me around $700, a desktop. Later on dropped 2x3TB drives in there with Win 7.
At this time, this desktop runs my old XP install as a VM, a Mac OS X, Ubuntu and a Scratchpad XP install, all as services in background.
I don't even notice a hick up. I doubt I could do all this on a C2Q machine.
In Windows XP if I wanted to close a bunch of randomly selected windows..... I could hold control and click on the task bar. The item clicked would stay stuck down and I could select many entries. Finally one right click would allow me to close Group.
In Vista this doesn't work
In 7 this doesn't work
In 8 this doesn't work.
I'm NOT talking about the auto grouping garbage that I turn off. No I might want to select 4 notepad windows, 2 explorer windows, 10 outlook email windows, and close them all with one god damned click like I could in windows XP.
It has only gotten less useful for real multitasking powerhouses like myself :)
I avoided upgrading to Windows 8 until just this past month. I must say I was
pleasantly surprised with it. It seems people have just decided to whine about
it for the sake of whining. Unfortunate 'crowdthink'.
It is interesting since they practically gave it away at launch. Their biggest mistake was the start menu omission, IMHO.
If you did a clean install... yer kinda screwed. If you just upgraded, not that big a deal. Just click on desktop and everything is still there. But the major problem I have is they put that screwy "award winning" ribbon everywhere. So you have to pretty much figure out how to search thru it to find anything. (The ribbon is the reason I still have office 2003)
Seems with every upgrade they move things around and you have to figure out where the hell they put it this time.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
I'm not talking about you and me. I'm talking about people that have no computer skills. Sure windows isn't that bad anymore, it's mostly stable and if you are careful then malware really isn't that big an issue anymore yet it's amazing how many windows boxes are massively infected to the point they wont run anymore. For the average person who really does nothing but surf porn, youtube and facebook Linux is actually a better choice. I've switched a lot of computer illiterates to it as they really don't need to know anything just to run it.
I haven't seen those messages in years. Maybe you're running a bleeding edge distro but the ones built to be stable really are just that, stable. Updating is such a non-issue anymore. I don't deny that when you try installing from a tarball or something then there are often various error messages but even I haven't had to do that in ages since everything I use is in my distro's repository.
So much hate for Windows 8...
As a programmer, I'm glad I upgraded to Win8. I don't use many Metro style apps and the start screen is better after 2-3 days of using it. I always use my keyboard to open the start menu anyway, so no visual start button is more screen real estate put to better use. The type-to-search works better than it does on my Win 7 box here at work.
It wasn't as big of an upgrade as 98 to XP, or XP to 7, but until software companies release software for PC/Mac/Linux more consistently, I'll be using Windows 8. Lots of nice new features already mentioned that make it a much more usable OS.
...then you can put whatever OS you want on it and you don't have to worry about pre-installed crap!!!!!
Until the auto-update gives them a new kernel and the video drivers no longer load. I've seen it happen several times with Ubuntu anyways. The user wants to watch movies on their computer but the open driver for their card can't do it without jaggies, so they put in the binary blob. Next thing you know after an update it boots to the console one day.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Seriously, I'm sitting here trying to think of a single success story coming out of Microsoft that originated during the Ballmer era. Is there anything that has come during his reign that has contributed as much to Microsoft's bottom line as Windows (Gates) and Office (Gates, again) does? Beuller? Beuller? Anyone?
is not the "vast majority" of computer users. The PC gamer segment is estimated at 100-300 million individuals worldwide. Sure, that's not nothing. But in comparison to estimates for total worldwide PC use (workstations, desktops, tablets) approaching 2 billion, it's not a big percentage.
There will always be some hardcore gamers. But the enthusiasts with the 1,000 watt+ power supplies and SLI GPUs are not the "vast majority of lightweights" about which we're talking. Angry Birds has 1.7 billion downloads. Show me a PC game that does that volume.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
The standard mod to used Thinkpads is an SSD and maxing the RAM. I like my WUXGA screen, build quality, and great keyboard on my T61 and won't need a replacement machine for several years (worst case). They are cheap enough to scatter around where you want them (home, shop, study, etc) and a better deal for me since I only carry my X200 to school. My i7 Dell XPS handles Solidworks and FeatureCAM.
I have no reason to buy a new PC.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
use a laptop for papers, etc. But the share of students that tell me that they only have an iPad with them at school has been growing rapidly for the last couple of years. At the end of 2010, I saw virtually none of them in class. By this semester, just about every student in my classroom is turning up with an iPad decked out in a colorful case.
Some are using the bluetooth keyboard cases (Zagg, etc.) to make it a "laptop lite" but many take notes touch-typing right on the screen, at decent speed.
I'm being encouraged by the department and by half the class at the beginning of every semester to use an ebook-available textbook instead of the series I've been using for years, and I get a decent number of complaints (30-40 percent of class this semester) if/when I refer students to online material that's Flash-based and tell them that if they can't see it on their iPad, they'll have to go to a computer lab on their own time and engage with it there.
The change is happening. I don't have any guess as to what the peak of the trend might be (i.e. what percentage of students using only an iPad will mark the top of the trend) but right now it's still expanding, semester-over-semester.
Of course, this is anecdotal—one campus, one discipline, one professor. But considering the rather radical break that it represents from traditional methods of information processing and computing work, it's a startling anecdotal experience, and as someone that cut my teeth on computing with Sun workstations and UNIX before moving into the world of PC unices for the better part of two decades, it's very alien to me.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Once computers used to run at 12MHz but had a Turbo button that let them run at 16MHz when you needed extra speed.
Not quite. The higher speed was the default; you pressed the tubo button when you wanted it to go slower. As it was usually Push-on/Push-off it is arguable whether it was in "turbo mode" for the faster or the slower speed. Usually a light came on when it was faster as that was more intuitive, but the faster speed was the PC's "natural" speed.
The purpose of the slower speed was for early games that relied on the PC clock tick for their timing. Think games like Blockbreaker. As PCs got faster (above about 20 MHz) these games ran too fast and the turbo button slowed the clock and made them playable again. I do not think it was ever defined what this slower speed should be and later games were written to get their pace from real time anyway.
the only reason you would want to upgrade to something so fast you can't measure the clock is all the protection software and encryption that your average business PC is saddled with.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
i concur. i was a bit leary about it coming on my new laptop. after some a quick googling to get 8 look more like 7, i spent a mere $5 and bought start8 from stardock, which not only returns the start menu (with plenty of choices, including the ability to make custom buttons) but goes directly to the desktop. no tile bullshit, ever, but i can still run metro apps if i want. all and all, it is faster than 7. the only problem i've had was the 2-versions-behind-the-current copy of powerdvd that shipped with my blu-ray burner. it, for whatever reason, doesn't work with 8. everything else works flawlessly.
...
Just trying to put a positive spin on that.
to see people happily ogling photos that they (1) save low-res prints from Facebook, then (2) upload to Walgreens via the digital app, to (3) make fuzzy prints with. I used to try to explain that their full-size phone photos are already there, in a different app, and that if they would just use those instead, the prints would look sooooo much better.
Same thing with data processing—so much tap, tap, tap and iCloud when it's so much more convenient to have a couple files on a filesystem. Even things like multiple windows open at once to work on complex projects.
But young people right now that have come of age with the current technological complex seem utterly immune to these concerns. It's what they know, and so far as they're concerned, it's fine.
And I have to say that I also ended up doing serious work on an iPad. When it came time to write my dissertation, somehow it ended up getting drafted on the iPad with a bluetooth keyboard. Something about the instant-on and the incredible mobility and battery life that let me move myself around from coffee shop to library to park, etc. helped everything flow better than sitting at a desk with my PC.
So there may be more here than meets the eye in terms of HCI/UX on iOS and mobile devices and their relationships to cognitive psychology and sociology, e.g. the way we think and the way we connect with things outside ourselves, without even realizing what the stakes/needs are.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Win95 was just the big leap from CLI to GUI. Yeah, there was Win3.11 before, but it was little more than a frontend.
No, Win3.1 was the big leap. You could use it without being aware the CLI existed and most people in my office used it in that way. As I am a techie I was often in the CLI, it was needed for many admin tasks, but that was just me. 3.1 had the same GUI as Win 3.0, but 3.0 was ridiculously unstable; 3.0 crashed about ten times every day compared with 3.1 about twice. 3.11 added networking.
Win9.x was still "little more than a frontend" on DOS, but its GUI was much flashier and covered more admin tasks.
I just bought a new phone last January .. and it's largely replaced both my laptop and my 7" tablet. It's big enough that I just don't miss the tablet, it's mobile enough to be with me everywhere.
You are forgetting the silver surfers. There is now a whole generation who use computers and are the wrong side of 50. For many of them their eysight is not up to looking at webpages or any other document on a phone display. I'd hang on to that laptop if I were you - could be useful when you get there.
I think someone lied to you. The Bestbuy near my house still has wndows seven, as of last sunday, anyways.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
then you are so filled with MS propaganda that there is no hope for you!
If you need to launch apps quickly and regularly, setup a desktop icon. If you want to search for an app, then having a graphical hierarchy is a better way to go about it for most people.
You can run windows on the thing, unfortunately windows screen scaling sucks.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Microsoft should know by now Linux is a MS killer.
To try and compete with Android ( locked Linux os )
or even apple, you will lose. MS should have gone for it
Like Xbox it would have lost money for a few years.
Has Xbox ever made money, I do not keep up with that stuff.
BUT also kept a desktop like OS for gamers. Don't
talk to me about business users they should have migrated to
Linus a decade ago. So now what did they expect W8 is
going to lose money for a few years. go figure.
I am thinking all the talk about H1N1 or bird flu masked the truly dangerous virus that hit a few years ago. Though biological in nature, it was tightly targeted, just like the Stuxnet malware. The payload was only unleashed when it attacked a host who was responsible for UI design or approval of those designs. First it struck MS's Vista team, then jumped over to Gnome, then Ubuntu, and finally re-appeared in the Windows 8 group. The symptoms include triggering a massive overload in the parts of the victim's brain that hosts their ego and greatly reducing their ability to process constructive criticism!
My workplace (medical) is all Windows, transitioning from XP to Win7. All of our key applications will not run on Win8. I am replacing an old Motion Computing tablet. It is not easy to shop for a Win7 computer, but that's what I did. Alternatives were buy a Win8 machine and hope it's downgradable or buy a native Win7 machine, and I went with the latter. Home users have had a growing choice of platforms since iOS and Android arrived. But I figured workplace use would remain solidly Windows. Suspect it still will. But maybe companies will wait for Win9 --JSt
> very little room for improvement
Oh yeah? I would understand that nobody should drive a car at 200 mph in a city, so making common cars very powerful (and more expensive) is not good.
However, for a gaming PC, you would want any MHz/fill rate you can squeeze out of it. There is lots of room for improvement there. Unfortunately, current silicon technology cannot push frequencies up as it was done in the 90s/start of 00s, and "multi-core" past 4 cores is really just a gimmick. So the reason why I would think for a few years before upgrading a CPU is because new CPUs are not that better. By 2013, I would have expected 20Ghz CPUs and GPUs that can run a FPS game at 100Hz at a high resolution monitor, and I do not mean "HD", more like 3000x2000.
They wouldn't think of it as "cloud services," and they would think of their iPad as a "PC" but in fact that's exactly what's happening.
A more operational way to describe the change is away from "disk operating system centricity" and toward "SaaS and cloud centricity." It's a few years late, but the browser (network infrastructure and related UI of a device) has become the operating system.
User-facing mass-storage I/O (bulk storage, filesystems, locally stored and accessed software and files) is what is essentially dying. But the argument was essentially that people couldn't migrate from Windows because of the local, disk-based applications infrastructure. With that infrastructure becoming less relevant and net-centric SaaS that runs on any platform becoming the model of the future, there is no Windows vise-grip any longer.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
There are just so many better alternatives out there now. At this point, something like Linux Mint is pretty hard to beat for a typical user.
I've seen the phrase correlation doesn't equal causation so often here that I can't count it, but I guess that's OK to use that flawed logic where Microsoft is concerned on Slashdot. It couldn't POSSIBLY be that tablets, phones, video streaming boxes and increasingly capable game consoles are taking market share for consumer computing devices that previously went to laptops and desktops. Nah...
Yeah, I don't want screen scaling. Why get those extra pixels then use several of them to display one pixel's worth of data?
Maybe I'm weird.
I find it hard to believe that consumers have so strong an opinion of Windows 8 that it would be harming PC sales. If anything, your average consumer likes new and shiny things. I think they're trying to find a correlation where there is none because the end result is that it makes Microsoft look bad.
I'd say there are two factors in play here:
1) The economy is not nearly as strong as some would like us to believe.
Consumers are still being frugal; if they're spending money it's not on new computers. I'd venture to say smartphones and tablets is where the tech spending is focused. Microsoft has entered this arena, but they're really starting from the ground up against established competitors. It's nothing like the world of personal computers. As it is, Windows Phone's market share has recently surpassed Blackberry's.
2) Processing power has outpaced outpacing software requirements.
This isn't the 1990s or early 2000s where software development was evolving dramatically and even a 1-year-old budget PC was barely able to keep up. I have a 5-year-old Dell that still runs everything, including Windows 8 flawlessly. It's even pretty good with most games I've tried. There's no incentive whatsoever to upgrade. I'd wager it's the same with the vast majority of consumers.
So the alternative would be to take the Apple approach with forced obsolescence. I can't upgrade my 5-year-old iMac to the latest OSX because of a single limitation, the EFI isn't the required 64-bit. Otherwise it handles most things fine. I'm experiencing some performance issues, but it's not anything that would be an issue for most users.
For what it's worth, amongst the people I've seen personally try Windows 8 they've liked it. I don't have a touch screen and I think the UI works extremely well, but without a doubt it's enhanced by a touch screen.
Maybe you didn't get the memo, but power users were always screaming that keyboard is faster, and just look at how fast can experienced people be with green screen keyboard-only interfaces. Search box on the menu is basically a command line with lookahead. Exactly what everyone who knows their usability knew all along since long ago.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I don't think anyone really buys Microsoft OSes to upgrade existing machines. That's what Apple has figured out but Microsoft hasn't -- people do buy OS X upgrades. Upgrade OS sales are probably noise for MS in terms of sales numbers, except maybe for corporate market. I'd love to see some numbers to prove me wrong.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I don't have a 'windows' key. I have a 101-key keyboard that I've been using for over 18 years. Except once. I received a 112 key keyboard at work. Now, you see, I don't 'touch type'. Started working with computers when I was about 12 (in 1980). I always hit the space bar with my right thumb.. on the end.. where the Alt key is on a 112 key keyboard. So I tried the new keyboard, and as a domain admin + software dev, I started typing something and hit space (oops! That was Alt). I just kept typing the next few keystrokes into the menu and nearly deleted a domain.
To end this story, that 112 key keyboard was promptly unplugged and discarded. I have a box of Compaq RT101 keyboards that should last me the rest of my life as long as I can connect them. My fingers also expect a physical gap between the Ctrl and Alt keys, so it is even more of a nuisance to use a keyboard with 'Billy Gates' keys, or what I call 'Billy Keys'.
Makes me a little concerned about what I might need to do if ever I have to use Win8. Hopefully, all this Win8 Metro stuff will have blown over before I have to be concerned about it. I haven't heard anybody raving about how cool Metro is or how much they like the new look of Visual Studio 2012, so I am thinking it isn't going to last.
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
If you're on linux and are "illiterate", you should stick to the packages provided by your distribution, and whatever repositories that are designed to interface with your distribution. I'm partial to RedHat, so I use CentOS and various add-on repositories (epel, atrpms, etc.). Once you add those repositories, you don't need to worry, simply use the graphical package manager and that's it. No need to manually download anything, no need to worry about dependencies. It's all handled automagically. Either it's there, or it isn't. The DAG repository has RPMs for the Flash plugin :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
In fact, the start menu itself takes almost no space at all unless it's accessed.
And the start screen / metro takes up no space at all unless it's accessed.
I'm typing on a Thinkpad that's about 7 years old now. The only change was adding a SSD into it. With that and the latest version of ubuntu and it runs perfectly fine for an internet machine that I do development on. It will have to break before I consider something else.
Given that CPU speeds have stagnated (I don't care how many cores there are - most people don't multi-task enough to benefit) and Microsoft has forsaken PC gaming for consoles and have taken a lot of interest with them so there's not much that requires more power and even if you wanted it they can hardly give it to you.
So I suspect most people have had something that's more than useable for the past few years. They too will wait until it breaks before buying another one. So PC makers need to make something more interesting. You can't just assume people will come and buy yet another generic beige box in 6 months ot a year because it won't have double the processing power or memory.
Windows 8 is certainly disliked and definitely not giving people a reason to buy a new computer but even if Win 8 was perfect you'd still have the problem that there's no much reason to upgrade when things work now and the economy is still shit.
And its mostly due to the terrible interface. IF M$ had just made the metro ui an OPTION instead of default and kept the start button in, they wouldn't have released a crappy OS.
To be fair, Windows 8 as an OS has been pretty good, it's just the new Start screen and Metro UI that make it such a pain (seriously... the desktop UI asks me to swipe from the side for more options!?). If you have Windows 8 on a desktop, you can install Classic Shell and be perfectly happy. With any luck, Microsoft will come to their senses and incorporate that functionality natively sometime down the road.
Microsoft and Star Trek... Every other release is a turd.
+1 Disagree
seems a large number of people have the dock set to autohide and getting it to show up remotely can be a pain, not to mention the window min/max animations are always horridly laggy... but i digress.
Command-Option-D (Windows-Alt-D remote from a PC) will activate or deactivate autohiding of the dock. And on Mac, don't ever use the yellow minimize button: just use Command-H to hide the window, bring it back again by clicking the appropriate dock icon.
Now your remote OS X sessions ought to be a bit more bearable.
The crap they did to the interface sucks and is just a big giant screw up. They really do think they dictate to us at microcrap what users want.
The irony is in 10 years I can see Ubuntu (or its ilk) getting the "metro makeover" and being progressive about it.
On a positive note, I really have not had any issues with the apps they released for it or for doing photography sideshows. It works pretty good out of the box and is quick and responsive, which is what an OS should be.
But even my grandma is looking at the start up screen and going "What the fuck is that".
I actually use OSX on my laptop... but i have the dock mounted to the left, and autohide turned off ... so despite using OSX daily it hadnt' occurred to me that there was a hotkey for it. -- for shame :)
Now even if I fail to commit it to memory, just knowing its there will be enough that I can look it up next time its needed.
Thanks!
Metro is the bridge between touch screen and non touch screen. Best implementation? No. Just like the idevice launch screen and one button interface isn't either. But here's what Microsoft did for you: it gave you the same OS for both, without stripping out the power of desktop programs. How would you have done better?
All they had to do was add a handful of options allowing users to bypass metro, start and disable associated charm inducing gestures and all of this bad press would have never happened. Finally allow metro apps to run within the desktop.
They received exactly this feedback during betas loud and clear and promptly filed it in the circular cabinent.
Their calculation was imposing windows store/tablet/phone on desktop would ultimatly improve their tablet/phone app problem ultimatly raking in more money than offset by pissed off customers refusing to upgrade.
The central problem here is a loss of customer centric focus. Eventually if you only twist arms and do things that provide value for the vendor but not the end user your user base begins to evaporate. There is no logic in being hostile to your current market in the name of chasing down new ones. There is such little MS needs to actually do to fix this it makes the whole situation quite sad.
I tend to agree that the desktop experience in Win8 is not so different from Win7. I have been doing pro HW/SW development using VC++, Eclipse, CAD tools, etc. on XP, Win7, and Win8, and I don't really notice such a different experience on Windows 8. I typically have a VirtualBox or XPmode instance, remote desktop connections, VNC, and Cygwin xterms active for testing, so for the rare cases that I switch to Metro, it's like working with another machine instance. I would argue that for IT people who are already accustomed to managing multiple VM's, the switchover to Metro just feels like going to another terminal.
The hybrid concept actually works really well for my work-life balance. I bought a Samsung ATIV Pro, which is similar to the MS Surface Pro, but I felt the Samsung had better specs. When I'm working, I'm docked to the keyboard and working mostly in desktop. When I'm at home, I'm un-docked and enjoy my mindless content consumption using Metro and touch. Rather than having a separate PC, iPad, e-reader, etc., the hybrid covers all my use cases!
For a serious critique of Win8, I would say that people need to use it for a few months. In my case, Metro has become second nature and I can use it equally well with mouse and touch.
Now, the thing that I really dislike about Metro from a developer standpoint is the inability to side-load custom apps. I often support small teams that are not domain joined, and Microsoft's restricted sale of sideloading keys are a huge deterrent to my desire to ever create a Metro app. I also dislike the developer license concept. When I'm prototyping, why should I have to deal with a license for my own app? Who ever thought we'd have to deal with licensing when writing "Hello World?".
Anyhow, Microsoft gave us a mixed bag here.
Is this the year of the ReactOS desktop? :-p
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Except that you don't have to learn a new system really on Windows 8. All you have to learn is to click the desktop button after bootup and you've got a familiar environment. Yes, there's not start menu which is very painful despite what some fans say. The alternatives like using windows key and start typing the name of an app are clumsy in comparison, but people can learn to do that. The full screen metro as start menu is doable though amazingly clumsy and inefficient compared to start menu. Simpler though to pin the 5 apps you use to the toolbar; it's a non-obvious thing. But for all those things, they're still easier to learn than learning a new system. Ie, Android is just plain awful for a novice user as it comes with no manual or instructions or tutorial, and the operations are not intuitive. Maybe over time it's Android is easier to use than Windows 8 metro, but it's not going to be a simple migration.
Windows 8 should have had an option during install or when adding a new user to decide on the default mode, metro vs desktop, and add back in the start menu, and then no one would have been complaining.
Probably a lot quieter though. 15K RPM? Yikes.
I had that happen years ago with the Nvidia blob. Most consumer level computers now have Intel based on board video and I haven't seen any problems with that.
I did this for my daughter, using KVM and one of the KVM gui's. Two caveats:
1. Can't play windows games on the vm. This isn't much of an issue for her, as she is heavy into minecraft.
2. Windows only sites like Rosetta Stone can be a pain in the rear to config for passthrough media. Camera, audio, mic all may need signed drivers that have to be tracked down and installed "just so". Mostly, that is an issue with Rosetta Stone building their Flash apps to work only with Windows.
Overall, not that big of an issue, but it isn't like there isn't something in the vm gui that points you to signed drivers. I would rather signed drivers for KVM Windows instances be released as packages instead. This isn't a Linux issue; if MS wants to make future sales of their OS, they will need to start distributing these kinds of drivers themselves via Windows Update.
I have absolutely no other complaints aside from those two minor ones. The kid does her own backups, maintains her own packages and software, and plays flash games on the net without any issues.
Got a new laptop with Win 8 on it the other day. Can someone please explain what the hell that login collage of a tower/mountain/lake scene is? Was that Steve Bullmer's contribution? What am I meant to do with those icon things? My parents have had a computer for 12 years and still can't use the right mouse button - they aren't going to have fun when there current XP desktop dies. Blew it away immediately and loaded Ubuntu 12.10 - breathed a great sigh of relief.
1680x1050 on a 15" isn't good enough.
The person who made that post was advising a 15" Retina, but then talking about the screen and so forth of his non-Retina 15" and his ex's MacBook Air, which are very different machines.
The 15" Retina MBP has a 2880x1800 display, and you can operate it in modes where the viewable desktop area is equivalent to non-Retina 1440x900, 1680x1050, or 1920x1200. The last is definitely good enough for most on a 15".
Lack of SSD these days is an unnecessary performance constraint.
Same thing, you took the wrong impression from a poorly worded post. There is no such thing as a retina MPB without a SSD. They don't even have a bay for a 2.5" HDD.
My laptop's older than yours and has higher specs (inc. the 300mbps wifi). It cost less.
Er, smash was talking about observed real world performance, not specs. WiFi almost never gives you spec-sheet throughput.
That's why i said get a MBP retina - which was not available when i bought mine. I do sync at 300 megabit wifi occasionally, buit 5Ghz is only good for that from about 4 feet from the AP.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Cheers. And yes, I've seen 300 megabit wifi sync, but as I mentioned above in another reply, that's only good for about 4 feet from the AP, as 5Ghz range/obstacle penetration sucks.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Hmm. Never actually tested real world performance.
Testing transferring from a NAS device I averaged 288mbps. That's with my laptop on my bed and my router in the computer room.
A few seconds later the rate started dropping and eventually finished on a sustained 170mbps. I may be constrained by local write speed, with the early good result due to filling buffers. Or it may just be fluke and I only get 170.
Given most of my traffic is via a 50mpbs 'net link that's probably sufficient :)
I've been in the market for a new PC for some time now, but somehow I haven't come around actually buying one.
If I reflect on it these are the factors that are stopping me:
* Table: as in "Tablet or PC?"
* Tablet vs. PC: as in "which one?" This is an indirect effect of the tablet: there are so many form factors, mixed forms in-betweens etc.
* Windows: while I need a full windows for word processing, games and some small digital publishing I hate the fact that it takes so much horsepower away and makes a €1000 PC feel slower than a €500 tablet. And it get slower as time goes by. And PC hardware allways get very hot.
* Windows 8: apart from the general resistance to windows the steep learning curve for my family and the assorted 'support calls' do worry me.
* Why: vendors say that my current problems (PC running hot, windows running slow) will be solved with the new generation. I'm not convinced that the current hardware is enery efficient enough and fast enough to run windows really smooth and not run hot afther some years. Show me a PC that runs windows really quickly without active cooling and that may convert me... if it does't cost €1500.
So, I'm stalling and will probably only buy a PC if one of the old ones really gives problems.
I have seen these types of messages on both Fusion (Fedora based), Mint and plain old Ubuntu. All supposedly noob friendly distros
The main issue is when you upgrade to a completely new version (like Ubuntu 10.10 to 12) which rarely works flawlessly.
If you want more factual info just look at bug pages like:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager
And reports like: http://fusionlinux.org/2011/03/17/fusion-linux-update-breakage/
or http://geslinux.blogspot.com/2012/07/fedora-17-gpg-key-retrieval-failed.html
I made sure I got my Win7 laptop just before the retail outlets stopped selling them. Glad I did.
some of them just add additional service. downgrade service to windows 7, as microsoft no longer support Windows XP.
Windows 8 not that friendly interface is the cause of the drop in computer sales.
computer repair white plains ny
When this ole laptop finally goes to the Great Recycler, I plan to buy a cheap Windows 8 laptop that I can turn off SecureBoot and reformat it for Linux.
I'm using a RHEL clone now. Works Great!
I didn't read past the first page of the article, so I don't know if this important issue was addressed later on. But was this 1Q drop exaggerated by accelerated Q3-Q4 sales (by people who wanted to lock in Win7)? I didn't see any graphs that showed Y2Y comparisons. Key question.
The buzzword for years now has been convergence. That is exactly what is happening. This is neither unexpected nor unintentional.
Windows 8 didn't help matters much and probably exacerbated it a bit, however then again Windows 8 is part of MS strategy for convergence anyway... The whole idea being to use the same OS for multiple devices, NOT just PC's anymore.
The real reason is the proliferation of Tablets, Phones, Consoles, that meet users various computational needs. The difference between all of these things now is moot as compared to even a few years ago. It has little to do with Windows 8 being less than stellar.
Using 8 on a new PC (PC had died). Contrary to the Microsoft commercials, Windows 8 was not designed for the desktop, and I would not recommend it unless you had to. Between Win 7 & Win 8, I would have trouble identifying ANY advantages of 8 over 7. As in literally none. Conversely, 7, from a desktop perspective is easier to navigate, doesn't end up with a bunch of open windows, tucked into the side of your screen, etc.
Are you actually suggesting, with that headline, that Win8 is to blame for Macs selling less as well? I love when fanboys try to write opinions as 'news'. PC sales started slumping before Win8 ever came out. Guess consumers are psychic and just had a feeling since we know how up to date the masses are when it comes to tech that's in the pipeline. Either that or the obvious answer is the right one. People are treating the PC market like the TV market. Most people have reached a point where good enough is good enough. There aren't really that many reasons for people to want to upgrade any more. We aren't seeing the same increases in computing power and speed at the same rates that we used to. Going from my DX66 to a 166 was a huge leap after a few years. The 4.2GHz 3770K I have is not likely to be easily replaced with a similarly priced 11GHz PC and I wouldn't spend the money any way if it did. My current computer does what I need it to. My mom has a 1.6GHz single core and couldn't care less. It runs Facebook and Youtube just fine...
What is killing PC Sales is not really the OS system but what you need a computer for. So you are working with graphics and animations the key computer system to use is a MAC. you are playing games you use a PC (Desktop), As for me I am a Gamer and do web Development i built my own box, I went to Fry's electronics and bought a board, the parts, tower ,power supply, memory, processor (well board and processor came as a package deal), than rather then spending over 2K for a computer system i spent a fraction of that building my own box.
AS for the OS system i used Windows 7 (64 Bit) Ultimate
Most people are not going to be doing a lot of things on a computer except possibly checking some emails, chatting on facebook, watching streaming movies or NSWF materials. Only Gamers and Developers need high tuned up machines that can handle a lot of resource requirements and be able to run several screens at the same time doing things.
IF you do not need to upgrade a OS system do not.......there is no point of it and also Windows 8 Is still under what a year old for the OS system so the key rule is to wait at least a couple years after the OS system comes out to make sure all patches, updates and security loops are fixed.
This is not about Windows 8, this is about the web - the web is killing new PC sales. This trend started ever since Windows XP which coincided with the great shift of the net from a publishing platform to an application platform. Simply put, we don't need newer and faster computers to use all the web sites and web-based apps that we know and care about. Even gaming hasn't been pushing the need for people to upgrade as fast anymore. This is not about windows 8, it's about the maturation of the computing industry as a whole. We current needs most people have for computers is still well served by 5 year old hardware.
Keyboards are far faster than mice for any competent computer user. Desktop icons can also be covered up by open windows, and there's limited space on the taskbar. Hierarchical menus with a mouse are slow as hell, and require knowing and understanding the path; search only requires knowing your target.
Back under your bridge, troll.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Have the Wall Street Journal publish an editorial stating that Obama plans to ban Windows 8 because it was involved in mass shootings, and watch the usual guys empty the shelves faster than they can be filled.
I have to admit I'm using Windows 8 right now and I just adore it. I love the Metro tiles and I also love the numerous improvements to the desktop. But I'll tell you, the reason that it works for me is because of the way I use it. I have Windows 8 on a Xeon box hooked to my family room TV. When you do that, suddenly, all those live tiles and the whole metro look makes perfect sense. The entire old desktop stuff feels antiquated and looks bad, but the newer metro stuff has transformed my PC into a workable media center. Granted, as a developer, I still spend a lot of time in the desktop, but, a lot of times that's only because I'm living with a lot of ugly applications being not-metro. I say this, of course, in total hypocrisy, because my soon to be released shareware app is certainly non-metro given the popularity of Windows 7 and that I just know the old school SDK.
This is my sig.
My Mom -> XP virtualbox on OSX
My Dad -> XP virtualbox on Mint LXDE
My Wife -> Win7 virtualbox on Kubuntu
Not just me ( xp virtualbox on lubuntu )
That's a perfectly valid thing to use a tablet for on occasion, but at best it's one less reason against buying a tablet; it's not a reason *to* buy one because, if that's the environment you want, a desktop makes far more economic sense.
Unless you need both a tablet and a desktop. In that case, a docking setup gives you a tablet that is instantly synchronized with your desktop because it is your desktop.
The basic multi-display functionality most relevant to tablets [is] nothing new. Windows has had all that since Vista if not earlier.
I have not yet had the chance to own a multi-monitor PC running Windows Vista or later. How well does Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 deal with dragging windows between monitors that have different pixel densities, such as between a 96 dpi desktop monitor and a tablet with twice that density?
I get ~200 megabit up to about 10 feet away, ~70 megabit (on 2.4ghz) at the other end of my 4 bedroom brick house (>17m err... 50+ feet through a number of walls away).
Around about 20 feet and a couple of walls to get through, 2.4ghz tends to give equal perfromance assuming no contention from competing wifi networks (I live in a new area so pretty lucky with that), beyond 20 feet and a few walls, 2.4ghz gives better performance than 5ghz due to the better penetration through walls that comes with lower frequency.
It also doesn't help that my Airport Extreme is doing double duty as a gigabit switch for my media centre and is stuck next to a wall on a shelf inside a TV cabinet - if it was mounted somewhere less shrouded by various walls and other obstructions I'm sure performance would improve.
5ghz performance drops rapidly with obstructions.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
You can turn off scaling and run 2880x1800 native if you want.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.