A Serious Proposal To Fix Windows 8

GMGruman writes "Windows 8 is simply not selling, and everyone but Microsoft knows it's a mess of an OS. And the Windows 8.1 'Blue' that Microsoft revealed some details of late last week doesn't address the fundamental flaws. So a team at InfoWorld worked up a serious proposal to rework Windows 8 for both PCs and tablets that fixes those flaws and lets Microsoft's true innovations break free of today's Windows 8, complete with mockups of the proposed Windows 'Red.'"

Comments

Re:Windows Red looks horrible

[SuricouRaven]

You're got to look at it from a business perspective. Microsoft is a 'traditional' software company: They make a product and sell it. They have no model for continuing to make money from their product post-sale, so they are highly dependent upon keeping customers continually upgrading. An increasingly difficult task - Windows XP remained popular for many years after MS intended it to die. Compare to Apple or Google: They don't just make products, but make an ecosystem around it - iTunes, , the app stores, tie-ins to other services, advertising. Every iPhone and Android device is a revenue stream to Apple or Google well after the initial sale.

Microsoft wants to copy that. It's a great business idea. Not always good for end-users though - the factor that enables the ecosystem business model is device usage restrictions. Apple couldn't make money off the iPhones if people were able to install just anything from anywhere, without the App Store taking a cut.

Re:No, it's not.

[wonkey_monkey]

It's done. If you want a Start menu, pay $5 to Stardock.

Why pay anybody anything? Classic Shell is free.

Re:My solution for fixing Windows 8

[UnknownSoldier]

> - OSX - anybody who tells you that this is somehow a better working environment than ms windows honestly is just lying.

Quit trolling. Do you even _use_ OSX on a daily basis?

I've been using computers since the early 80s and have used a ton of OSes: Apple DOS 3.3, Apple ProDos, DOS 2.x - 6.x, Win3.1 .. Win8 (inclusive), Irix, BeOS. For the past 2 years I've been using OSX as part of my day job.

My thoughts based on _experience_: As a power user OSX is pretty darn good. You can Alt-Tab into & out-of games all day long without _any_ hiccups. On Windows alt-tabbing back INTO the game almost always forces a 1 or 2 second hiccup. The way Windows manages devices & scheduler in Windows is wonky.

+ The UI is good. Clean and (mostly) well designed (although Apple appears to be making more and more bone-headed decisions lately.) The 4 hot-corners of the desktop (Expose) is fantastic. Borders are only 1 pixel thick in OSX in contrast to the fugly 8 pixel width on Win 8. OS also has the advantage that MS Office shows the menu bar ALONG with the stupid ribbon.

+ On the MBP the trackpad blows away any Windows laptop I've tried.

+ BSD under the hood which makes porting to Linux helluva a lot easier for command line apps. XCode is a decent IDE.

- OSX Virtual Memory still stinks (I've been able to completely hard-lock OSX once about every 6 months) on 10.6 and 10.7.

- GPUs have always sucked on the MacBook. TF2 with everything turned down and barely able to get 20+ fps on a 3 yr old 17" MBP.

= When needed the majority run Windows in a VM (Parallels) and we have a few dedicated Windows boxes. A lot of developers (~20) also run Linus inside a VM (VMWare or VirtualBox) (no Plus nor Neg, equal = tie)

We have an office of ~70 people who use OSX on a daily basis and would also basically agree you are completely talking out of your ass. So yes, OSX is _good_ enough for daily use.

Besides, Linux _already_ won on the mobile space.
http://techland.time.com/2013/04/16/ios-vs-android/

Re:Windows Red looks horrible

[UnknowingFool]

Apple couldn't make money off the iPhones if people were able to install just anything from anywhere, without the App Store taking a cut.

Apple makes as much or more revenue off iPhone hardware sales ($22B) alone than all of MS according to their quarterly financials. While Apple makes money off of apps and content ($4B before they take their cut), it not as much as what they make on iOS hardware ($30B).

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Re:My solution for fixing Windows 8

[Coolhand2120]

I've recently been made to switch from a Win8 machine to a brand new OSX machine. The Win8 machine has three monitors, 256ssd, 16bg ram, i7. The OSX machine is a Macbook Pro Retina i7 256ssd, 16bg ram with two external monitors. There are some cool things about OSX but there are many stupid things about OSX. And they're not stupid like "this is different" stupid, they're stupid like "this shit is stupid". Because I'm feeling verbose I'll list the really stupid low hanging fruit. And at the end I'll list what I really enjoy about it.

OSX

• * I have to sign up for iTunes to keep my computer updated!?
• * I HAVE TO GIVE ITUNES MY CC# TO KEEP MY COMPUTER UPDATED!?
• * I have to restart my computer to keep it updated? I thought this was Unix?

Keyboard (external mac? keyboard)

• * Why is the keyboard all fucked up? Two keys labeled delete? Is there some aversion to calling a backspace key a backspace key?
• * Where the fuck did insert go!? You know some people actually use insert!
• * For that matter where is num lock and scroll lock? Again, I use those keys!
• * Why redesign the num pad into a Apple(TM) num pad and move all the keys around?
• * The behavior of the home and end key is stupid! They jump to the end and beginging of the document instead of the end and begining of the line! What gives them the right?!
• * They remove essential keys like insert but I have F1-F19!? And an eject key on a system that doesn't even have an optical drive? (not that they knew that about my system, so a small pass there.)
• * Seriously? No Alt key? WTF, I thought this was UNIX! How the fuck am I supposed to use EMACS!?

OSX Windows

• * WIndows present resize mouse cursors on some windows edges that cannot be resized! Inexcusable! I should be able to resize the window from any edge. And for god sakes, if I can't resize it from that edge don't show me a fucking resize cursor and make me think I'm losing my mind.
• * What the hell is up with this full screen arrow. Useless shit. It removes all the windows from my other screens and throws up a lame gray background. Lame.

• * Is this green control box maximize or what!? It seems like sometimes it wants to maximize height and width, and other times it will only maximize height. Be consistant. No, actually, always maximize both!

• * I would be so happy if when I resize the top edge of the window to the top of the screen if the bottom would snap to the bottom of the screen like win7/8. I'm not saying this makes all the difference in the world, but when you make it difficult to resize (my first point on windows) this is even more important.
• * More customization of color and style would be nice, but I'm not going to cry about too long about that.

• OSX Finder

  • * Seriously? This is the worst piece of shit file manager I've ever seen. Apple has a lot of talented people, money and has had plenty of time to make something wonderful and they made this? As quickly as I could I replaced it, I'm using nuCommander now. Get your shit together Apple.
  • * I can't remove this POS from my dock without doing some serous surgery to the OS. Even if I do get it removed, it'll come back and stick there until I restart if I open it somehow. Grow up finder, not everyone should be forced to use you. But then, this is Apple, home of "we force you to use shit" so I shouldn't be surprised.
  • * I can't type a path in here? Fuck that! That alone makes this program trash. Really, a lot of the "finder replacements" are trash for the same reason. Are people afraid to have a path bar you can type in?

  Apple Magic Mouse

  • * RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON!!!! Oh my god! I can't click this right mouse button like 90% of the time. Oh there's a right mouse button, but when you try and click it, it produces a left mouse click. You have to remove y