Windows 8.1 Rolls Out Today

The newest iteration of Windows has begun rolling out, and is winning positive reviews. (Here's an in-depth review from Ars, and a more concise one from Wired — both give 8.1 a thumbs-up). Kelerei wrote with the above-linked TechDirt article on the release, noting that it is a staged rollout rather than global. Starting this morning, though, 8.1 is available to some customers. Kelerei writes: "The upgrade is optional (and free) for existing Windows 8 users, though if one looks at the changes, it's hard to imagine why those already on it wouldn't upgrade." Also at Slash BI.

Comments

You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never upgrade, never!

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

Cool. I'll be right over.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[flyneye]

Hands Up, who thought of Windows 3.1 when they saw the article?
Who would really rather work from that interface and have a DOS shell again (provided it were powerful enough and everything was written to run on DOS)?
Yes, I realize there are much funner and faster out there, this is hypothetical, Gawd! Relax a little!

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the first line as " The newest irritation from windows". wow

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[bondsbw]

Hands Up, who thought of Windows 3.1 when they saw the article?

I... did not. I don't see the resemblance (other than "8.1" looks a bit like "3.1").

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[egcagrac0]

Switch back? I'm still running OS/2 on at least one box in production.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[operagost]

When Windows 8 came out, I thought about all the effort they put in since Windows 95 to have as few items on the desktop as possible. So, yes, it's like they went back to Windows 3.x Program Manager, having icons scattered all over.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Struggled with Windows 2.11 here.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[omnichad]

Personally I'd wait for Windows 8.11 for Workgroups.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[omnichad]

It's the first .1 release since 3.1. We've had Service Packs and year numbers and "Second Editions" but we haven't had a .1 in a long time.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Joce640k]

"it's hard to imagine why those already on it wouldn't upgrade"

Question is: Is it hard to imagine people who aren't on it upgrading? eg. From Windows 7?

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Xest]

Why? you'll like this version. It has a lot in common with Windows 95.

For example, it adds a start button to the operating system.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[fast turtle]

That's the nice thing about Virtual PC 2007 - I can actually run Dos/WFW3.11 on it and yes, there are a few apps that still need it and the updates (if any) don't offer the stability or features of the 3.11 version. Another thing is, I still have the TCP/IP stack for WFW3.11 so it's capable of connecting to the net if ever allowed along with a copy of Netscape for WFW (Yep I'm a pack rat) that came on CD. Guess I'll have to see how badly things have changed from then (I do like my right click though).

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[hairyfeet]

Well lets see...both are single task designed OSes, both have a look like something from the early 90s and oh yeah...both suck.

So I'd say its a pretty apt mistake to make. BTW I have a question to all those Win 8 apologists...why do you not praise the "innovation" of sticking teeny tiny desktops on cellphones? Because all MSFT did was flip the same tired old shit they did for a decade, instead of stuffing a desktop GUI on a cellphone they jammed a cellphone GUI, complete with appstore crapstore and swipe gestures, onto a desktop where it makes NO fucking sense. Hell for that matter why aren't you replacing the steering wheel in your car with bike handlebars? After all by MSFT logic since bikes are growing and are the most popular UI worldwide for transportation that MUST make them superior and therefor perfect to use anywhere for anything.

I think I'll just leave this here and note how many times he says things like "stop" and "I don't want that" as the OS actively fights against the user who isn't doing the "tweeting twits and social shit" MSFT clearly designed the OS for. A GOOD UI should HELP the user and get out of the way, a BAD UI is a hindrance...which would you say Win 8.x is?

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[hermitdev]

we haven't had a .1 in a long time.

Sure we have. Vista's version number was 6.1. It just wasn't plastered around everywhere and you had to dig a little bit to find it.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[omnichad]

I thought we were talking about marketing names. Version numbers in Windows are more or less meaningless.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[linebackn]

Say what you will, but the Windows 95/NT 4 Windows Explorer is the lightest weight, least cluttered, most consistent, and most sensible version of their user interface of all of them.

It pre-dates all the web "integration" madness so it is not tied to IE under the hood. It provides all the file management and desktop functionality anybody would really need, even in a modern computer.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[smash]

They've gone back to program manager, except it is less flexible and customizable.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[danbert8]

That about sums it up. I had to use it at a hotel once and tried to print a PDF. I gave up in frustration. Where are the icons? How do I do anything? Why doesn't Ctrl-P even work? Nothing appears to do anything! Right clicking is useless! Where do I click? What the #(%()*@^##%*?

Now my girlfriend has it on her laptop and I've made it as Windows 7 as possible so it's at least usable.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[darkain]

4.1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98

5.1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_5.1

6.1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_6.1

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[omnichad]

To be specific, I meant a marketing name with .1 - version numbers are pretty much meaningless.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Sir_Eptishous]

Right, but with "Windows 8.11 for Workgroups" there is no joining domains... only Workgroups!

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[21mhz]

This comment, and its moderation, show why I read Slashdot comments with slightly nostalgic condescension these days.

Sure, old buddy, but... we have moved on.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Sir_Eptishous]

I actually first experienced a network aware gui via OS/2, and I remember thinking how incredible it was. Then I was forced down the path of least resistance...

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[JohnnyMindcrime]

With all respect, I agree with him. I am both Linux and Windows person with no requirement to spend valuable CPU cycles on unnecessary eye-candy simply to impress someone who happens to look over my shoulder.

GUI interfaces need to be slick, clean and uncluttered, they need to get you to where you need to be in as few mouse-clicks and key presses as possible, whilst at the same time allowing usage of both of them for navigation.

Rotating cubes, melting windows and icons that animate other than to tell you your mouse pointer is over them have no place on any computer outside of a kindergarten classroom - Windows, OS X, or Linux, I don't care, I'm not biased.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[AmiMoJo]

Are you kidding? Windows 95 introduced such horrors as the ever-expanding task tray and the "shit icons all over my desktop" paradigm for installing new software. DOS was visible through the cracks too.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[TangoMargarine]

I actually first experienced a network aware gui

For some reason I just imagined a sexual encounter with an AI from the way you worded that....Winning?

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[TheyTookOurJobs]

EVERY business is laughing at MS. 8 on a workstation is a joke. Tiles, YAY! Server 2012 shoving metro down my throat too? Yea, not happening. In fact, just FU.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[roc97007]

You should at least upgrade to 98SE. Just sayin'.

The local bottle deposit machines (at three different chains) still, in 2013, display the Windows 98 splash screen at boot.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[marcosdumay]

the ever-expanding task tray

the "shit icons all over my desktop" paradigm

That both survived until Win7, and then got replaced with something worse. I don't see how that makes Win95 worse than any later version of Windows. Or are you trying to compare it with 3.11?

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[KingMotley]

I tried this. I rewrote all of windows, tried to launch paint, and it came back and said not enough memory so I gave up.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[shutdown -p now]

In what sense is Win8 a "single task designed OS"?

If you're referring to Metro, then even that lets you tile up to 4 apps now.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[Pseudonym Authority]

Ohmahgawd, the CPU cycles! If I turn Aero on my 8 core, 3.5 GHz processor will over heat and might even use a few percent of my 16 GBs of RAM! It disgust me that they would use a whole ONE HUNDRED MEGABYTES of my 4TB hard drive to even hold this crap. I swear, if you want to save your system resources from M$ shit then you have to practically physically remove them. And that's exactly what I did: I have two $500 graphics card sitting in my desk right now because Windows wouldn't stop using it unnecessarily. Talk about fucking bloatware! Too bad they don't make drivers for DOS anymore, otherwise I could be enjoying the refreshingly minimalistic interface that doesn't waste time idling the CPU or on kernel scheduling crap.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[roc97007]

>> EVERY business is laughing at MS.

>> what's funny is that you actually think that, businesses don't care. in reality the actual functional difference between 7 and 8 from a user's perspective is simply the replacement of the start menu with the start screen. if you spend any significant amount of time in the start menu on 7 you're clearly doing something wrong anyway.

If by "businesses" you mean quickbooks for a hotdog stand, then I guess so. But if you're talking Enterprise, then yes, they very much do care. This is why businesses will skip an entire release (Vista, for instance) if there is a perception of potential roll-out issues. An extra few minutes a day struggling with a new OS isn't significant at home -- but with 20,000 users, it becomes a serious issue.

It's important to remember, regular employees are typically not computer geeks. They use computers for specific purposes, and find no joy in learning the ins and outs of a new interface. To them, the OS is just something that loads the applications they need to do their jobs. If 98SE was still supported, it'd still be on people's desks. (Win98 *is* still being used in embedded applications.)

Windows 8 is enough different that retraining is a significant issue, an issue that increases with installed base. Enterprise customers are just now migrating from XP to Win7, and 7 is a small leap, a hop really, from XP. Crossing the chasm to 8 is out of the question, at least in its current form. If 8.11 (I like that name) restores the Win7 look and feel, it significantly increases the chances of Enterprise adoption. (Similarly, some Enterprise customers are just now moving from Server 2003 to Server 2008, and have no interest in 2012.)

This, I think, was the major mistake with Win8. In the effort to achieve the dual goals of conforming to the "single codebase" philosophy and being seen as a player in the tablet marketplace, Microsoft created an OS that Enterprise customers could not accept. I wouldn't be surprised at all if another release or two down the road Win8 was (or could be made to be) identical to Win7 in look and feel. But, that would mean that Microsoft decided to give in and do something practical. They may instead just double down on their "touch screen interface on non-touch computers" concept. That would be entertaining.

On the other hand, this may all be part of a cunning plan. Given that Microsoft recognizes that Enterprise customers tend to skip every other release, they could be writing off Win8 in the enterprise and using this opportunity to try to capture as much of the touch marketplace as they can, deciding to worry about the replacement for Win7 Enterprise Edition further down the road. It'll be interesting to see what shakes out.

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[antdude]

Windows 3.x weren't that good IMO. 8.11 would be basically like 8.0 and 8.1. Yawn. :P

Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands!

[chopthechops]

now Windows works more similarly to a Mac.

Except that (in my opinion) OS X is a pleasure to use but using Windows 8 on a desktop is best described as "not that bad once you get used to it".

Before you pointed them out I had not consciously recognised the similarities between the Dock/Taskbar and Launchpad/Start screen, possibly because (in the case of the Dock anyway) the Microsoft offerings are pale imitations. I don't use noob-oriented Launchpad on OS X and don't know anyone who does because there is no reason to do so. I'm glad OS X does not force me to use lauchpad the way Win8 does with it's Start screen.

Meh

[fermat1313]

Windows 8 was a huge disaster, and windows 8.1 only applies a different color of frosting to the same stale cupcake. As both a personal user and IT decision maker, there's no way I'd put Windows 8.x on anything around here.

Re:Meh

[Sponge Bath]

The millions of consumers buying cupcake pans this fall will need to fill them with something. Toast and bagels won't fit.

Re:Meh

[SpoonStomper]

That's quite silly. Considering this brings back the missing features that everyone was missing like a start button and boot to desktop. This puts it on par and better in many ways than Windows 7.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

The start button doesn't actually do anything. It just brings up the modern UI.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the start button does the same thing as the Windows button in Windows 8.0 - show up the Metro UI. In effect, it's only taking up additional space on the task bar for those who ignore the Metro stuff.

Re:Meh

[Charliemopps]

Cupcake pans are quickly going out of style. Thanks in part to all the shitty Microsoft cupcakes getting baked recently.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really.

Boot to desktop is nice.

The missing Start button that they "gave back" however now takes you to a "Start Screen" that takes over your entire screen (what if I wanted to navigate based on a graphic that was previously on the screen or based on instructions that I wanted to keep up) and relies on hot-corners and swiping for navigation (which are a waste based on the simplicity of the previous interface.

The "returned" start button is equivalent to someone buying a car and stating that they wanted a manual transmission. Then when the car was delivered it turned out that it had an automatic transmission. Then when this draws a complaint, the seller installs a stick and clutch pedal, but leaves the automatic transmission.

What's scary is that 3rd party companies had no problem doing this almost on day one. This is more just MS not wanting to bend. Not surprisingly, nobody I've spoken to is happy with this.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard there are delicious cupcakes being handed out for free by a bearded guy over there.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Windows 8 UI was the disaster, the OS itself is great compared to anything else. Win8.1 will fix that.
 
But I guess if you're going to goose step you may as well goose step right and compare it to Ubuntu with Unity.

Re:Meh

[somersault]

Here is the free (as in beer) software you are looking for.

Shame it doesn't completely eradicate Metro, but at least it means you can avoid it most of the time.

Re:Meh

[MrDoh!]

I've found it great. To launch VirtualBox and XP machines on. Apart from that, it's still... just terrible. I hear screams of frustration from the main office far too often still.

Re:Meh

[Anrego]

I've normally considered myself fairly pragmatic, and while I've run Linux happily for well over a decade, I totally get why it's not a practical solution for most. Interesting thing is, for the first time since.. forever, I actually feel like I can recommend Linux to my non-technical friends. The situation that's coming up a lot:

"I run windows XP, I tried windows 8 and hated it, what the heck am I supposed to do when they stop supporting XP".

Gaming is still the big sticking point (though even that's improving a lot), but for my "facebook and email" friends, throwing mint on there (or whatever the current user-friendly distro of choice is) is becoming a realistic thought. One in particular has a computer that's barely capable of running XP right now, so I might recommend it to her as a trial.

The other big unresolved sticking point has been attachment to specific software. In the case above, she has used some ancient version of "print master gold" for a while and would very much like to continue doing so. It's this kind of thing that we tend to shrug off that keeps people from switching, but at this point it probably won't work on windows 8 anyway, so nothing to lose, and might be able to make it work through wine..

Re:Meh

[zixxt]

That's quite silly. Considering this brings back the missing features that everyone was missing like a start button and boot to desktop. This puts it on par and better in many ways than Windows 7.

The start button does not doing anything useful. And its still missing the Start Menu, and I very much prefer Aero over the ugly flatness of Windows 8 metro interface.

Re:Meh

[slaker]

Honestly, it's fine. I rolled out 8 (plus Classic Shell) to about 150 systems and they've been trouble free. My power users like to whine about having to go look for that's now split between Control Panel and the Settings modern app, but power users always whine about things and I don't care. For every person who moans about something that moved, I have at least one compliment about how fast their computer seems now. My less-experienced users actually do pretty well with the start screen that puts the three or four applications they're supposed to be using in a nice, huge tile right in front of their face.

Re:Meh

[jones_supa]

My power users like to whine about having to go look for that's now split between Control Panel and the Settings modern app, but power users always whine about things and I don't care.

It's still a rather unelegant split. If Microsoft wanted to go with the Modern UI, they could (and should) have implemented the classic Control Panel in its fullest, inside the Modern UI. Also some of the Windows Accessories are still missing a Modern UI counterpart, including Notepad! These things don't make sense. They didn't do the proper integration work and that's why the new UI still sometimes looks like a taped-on quick tech demo.

Re:Meh

[dunezone]

Free or not its still ridiculous that I need to download third party software to have a feature that was standard to Windows for 17 years.

Re:Meh

[Suki I]

As long as it stays on the view I wanted without switching to something else whenever I touch the trackpad, I am in.

Re:Meh

[operagost]

Excuse me, I am a disaster in the kitchen so I don't get all your baking analogies. Could we compare Windows 8.1 to automobiles, or sports, or something?

Re:Meh

[operagost]

"I run windows XP, I tried windows 8 and hated it, what the heck am I supposed to do when they stop supporting XP".

Run Windows 7 until that leaves support in 2020?

Re:Meh

[CreatureComfort]

That's what all the fan boys say, but when I checked it out, all he was handing out were poorly documented recipes and a lump of ingredients that I had to bake myself, and when I asked where to go to get the rest of the ingredients I needed, all the other cooks called me noob, and said that I didn't really need those raisins, or I should be using walnuts instead of the pecans I really wanted...

Re:Meh

[Anrego]

That's probably what I would do if I had to run windows, but people are (not too surprisingly) hesitant to spend an additional $200 or so to get an older version of windows. Upgrading from XP to 7 probably makes sense for those running XP on machines that can support it.

Re:Meh

[X0563511]

Imagine this. That is Windows 8. Now, imagine this. That is Windows 8.1.

Sure, it's a pretty ball and all, but it's broken and changing the paint job isn't going to fix it.

Re:Meh

[X0563511]

GCC: GNU Cupcake Cooker?

Re:Meh

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Games are the only thing stopping me from moving to Android (though pure 8 was an absolute showstopper as a next computer, too. I'm at an unheard of 4 years old and counting).

But then I wonder, I only play older games. All new games for PC are console ports. A handful of powers at a time because that's all a controller can handle, that kind of thing, and I can't stand them.

There's nothing but some 3+ year old games keeping me on a PC, and that's evaporatingly weak.

Re:Meh

[Chas]

No.l Actually 8.1 WON'T fix that.

All it does is add a teasing layer of "fuck you" to the interface with the useless "Start button".

What the people asking for a start button back are REALLY asking for is a start MENU. Not a start SCREEN.

Re:Meh

[Chas]

Actually, IIRC the Mythbusters proved you CAN polish a turd.

*I* still wouldn't want it either way...

Re:Meh

[X0563511]

Do you really think that's OK? It is not acceptable that such a thing is required to get basic functionality from your OS.

Imagine the uproar if Canonical removed everything except Unity from their repositories. Would you think that was OK? Sure, you could easily add a third-party repository (eg, getdeb) and get your goodies back, but you should not have to do that and that is the problem.

Re:Meh

[TractorBarry]

Wish I had mod points today +1 funny... or should that be +1 insightful :)

Re:Meh

[X0563511]

Try it again without a third-party UI and watch what happens... If you're using a third-party UI your experiences with it are no longer valid. If you're happy with it that's great, and wanting others to know about it so they can be as well is awesome, but you're enabling Microsoft to pull this kind of shit.

Re:Meh

[cogeek]

Start button? I haven't been able to download it and try it yet, but every review I've read says the "Start Button" just flips you back out to the tiled Metro UI. That's not a start button. The start button lets users get to the app they want to run in 2-3 clicks. That #$*$@&@ed up Metro UI takes 10 times as long to do the same thing. F#$k Microsoft, the only reason I had one Windows computer left at home was for Netflix, but that's not enough anymore, Windows is gone.

Re:Meh

[omnichad]

Nobody even owns a cupcake pan nor are they planning to buy one. They all have 9x13's. Microsoft programmed to the wrong interface.

Re:Meh

[Sockatume]

Optionally, it brings up the All Apps menu instead of the Start Screen. It's not quite a fullscreen Start menu, but that's the best comparison I can make.

Re:Meh

[X0563511]

There's more broken with than just integration. The whole UX is fucked.

Re:Meh

[slashmydots]

I agree with that. I build A LOT of computer at my repair and custom builds shop and now that my ad campaign is basically "I still build new PCs with Windows 7" I've had even more. I refuse to sell it. The problem is, most of my virus removal and diagnostic tools don't work on 8 but I can't simply refuse to service it either. But besides that temporary annoyance, I'm doing fine refusing to sell it. I didn't build one single Vista computer the entire time it was out since XP licenses were still available and I kept getting decent used XP machines in to refurb and that's how I intend to handle 8 as well. I REALLY hope Windows 9 doesn't put me out of business though because 7 will stop being available past then.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

That's quite silly. Considering this brings back the missing features that everyone was missing like a start button and boot to desktop. This puts it on par and better in many ways than Windows 7.

The start button does not doing anything useful. And its still missing the Start Menu, and I very much prefer Aero over the ugly flatness of Windows 8 metro interface.

I have a Windows 8 laptop, and spend close to no time in metro, almost all in normal windows desktop mode, and then it is a better Windows 7 than Windows 7. The best thing about 8.1 isn't the start button, but boot to desktop. Now I will spend even less time in metro. Pin all your most used programs to the taskbar (gives additional right click functionality as well). And use Win-X (or right-mouse-click corner if you don't like keyboard shortcuts) for a power user menu with direct access to control panel, settings, search, command prompt, run, etc. etc.).

Re:Meh

[omnichad]

It's not exactly modern to be running Notepad full-screen without being able to layer 3 or 4 windows around the screen at whatever size I want like I've been able to do for over 15 years now. I'm surprised they haven't renamed the OS "Window." I guess you can have two windows at once in Modern UI, so they can still say "Windows."

Re:Meh

[somersault]

If I thought it was okay, would I be letting everyone know about software to make things usable again? IMO it's the best option for anyone who doesn't have a spare copy of Windows 7.

Just saying "you should not have to do that" doesn't solve the immediate problem.

Re:Meh

[DutchUncle]

... (or whatever the current user-friendly distro of choice is) ...

This remains the biggest problem with Linux. If computers are your avocation, you follow the competitive news and switch distributions at the drop of a hat (color irrelevant). Just like sports car enthusiasts tuning up an already-well-tuned car. Problem is, most people - and that includes this embedded systems engineer - just want the damn thing to *work* without having to mess with it for some update or other every damn day.

... It's this kind of thing that we tend to shrug off that keeps people from switching ...

This remains the biggest problem overall. You may recompile your kernel just for fun, but some people actually use their computer as a utilitarian device to *do* something that they need to continue getting done. "Might be able to make it work" has a converse of "Might kill your small business by destroying your primary tool".

And appreciate, if only on the technical level, the huge efforts Microsoft undertook to make it difficult to even run on one computer consistently, let alone change hardware underneath for legitimate upgrades, in the interest of avoiding copying - tons of complexity that Linux simply avoids because it doesn't care about avoiding copying. You'll never get it to work right because you'll never be sure that you got all of the registry entries and hidden dependencies.

So why doesn't someone make an XP replacement machine? Conform to the XP interface specs at the bottom end, with much faster hardware loafing along doing half-work, just to keep old XP applications alive? It should be trivial; other than the part about Microsoft's lawyers carpet-bombing you into the late Neolithic.

Re:Meh

[Joce640k]

Talking of shapes...there's a lot of things that you do by moving the mouse to a 'corner' of the screen.

What happens if you have multiple monitors? Do they stop working?

Re:Meh

[JohnnyMindcrime]

Speaking as an IT person with 30+ years experience who is mainly a Linux guy but likes XP and Windows 7, I only ditched my last copy of XP (excluding virtualised ones) about 6 months ago and moved to Windows 7.

Ultimately, I like Windows 7, it's as reliable as XP (mainly because I never found XP to be unreliable) and a lot slicker on newer hardware, but then XP was starting to get clunky with newer machines.

But I hated Windows 7 when I first started with it, it seemed that stuff (especially in Control Panel) had been moved around for no readily apparent reason and a couple of months to comfortably find everything I wanted to as quickly as I could in XP.

My point is that it took even an IT geek a couple of months to get used to a new OS, so why is this any different for "Joe Sixpack" ditching XP and moving to, say, Linux Mint with it's Cinnamon interface that is very similar to the XP layout.

It's all just about familiarity and I am sure every Microsoft-focused person out there suffered some initial infuriation when they fired up Windows 7 for the first time and saw how different a lot of it is from XP. Yes, we all got used to it and like it now, but that time to familiarise was still there, even if you choose not to acknowledge it.

Re:Meh

[Windowser]

Problem is, most people - and that includes this embedded systems engineer - just want the damn thing to *work* without having to mess with it for some update or other every damn day.

Install Debian stable and you will be pleased. Even a major version upgrade just works (ex.: from 6 to 7)

Re:Meh

[Joce640k]

The situation that's coming up a lot:

"I run windows XP, I tried windows 8 and hated it, what the heck am I supposed to do when they stop supporting XP".

Windows 7.

Yes, it's better than XP.

Re:Meh

[Joce640k]

So why doesn't someone make an XP replacement machine? Conform to the XP interface specs at the bottom end, with much faster hardware loafing along doing half-work, just to keep old XP applications alive? It should be trivial; other than the part about Microsoft's lawyers carpet-bombing you into the late Neolithic.

Trivial? LOL! Those 'specs' are humungously huge.

PS: There's a bunch of guys trying to do it ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS ). They've been trying since 2004, and they already had a codebase when they started.

Re:Meh

[TitusC3v5]

Obligatory Penny Arcade.

Re:Meh

[asmkm22]

8.1 actually makes the experience pretty decent on a desktop. Just get used to right-clicking the start menu instead of left-clicking gives you quick access to most t hings you need. The real "start menu" is still there, but once you unpin the crap it starts with (weather apps and such) and pin your actual programs, it functions well enough. It's also nice, now that I'm used to it, to be able to just hit the windows key and start typing to get the program i want. The search is fast, and you really just type and hit enter.

There are a few tweaks to make, though, but nothing real difficult. For example, I set the default picture viewer to the actual Windows Picture Viewer (or whatever it's called). By default it loads up an app, which makes you go through the weird transition away from the desktop with no real clear way on how to get back (mouse the top left for a list of open apps, including the desktop).

For the record, I couldn't stand version 8. I only recently gave 8.1 a try, via Technet, and it's been pretty decent. Certainly not the horrific beast that win 8's reputation implies.

Oh, and I work in IT.

Re:Meh

[wmac1]

The windows 7 start button did not do a huge work too. It brought a list of shortcuts (and a search for shortcuts).

Re:Meh

[smash]

I'm in a similar position (hardware and software platform selection is mostly my call) and i see essentially zero reason to go to either 8 or 8.1 at this time. Though i suspect we'll end up getting forced that way sooner or later due to the desire for tablets and new hardware - win7 non-SP1 slipstreamed already runs into issues with the installer fucking up on 4k sector drives.

Re:Meh

[smash]

I've been recommending OS X instead. The hardware is nice and it just works. Unlike the haswell box i just built that has a "Linux supported" ASUS PCE-N53 wifi adapter (linux support mentioned on box) that requires driver compilation from source and the supplied driver is only for 2.6 with no official updates either released or expected (I asked). Only way to make it work is to download a patch from some random guy on an internet forum and compile the driver. Then have it break every kernel upgrade, and need to be recompiled.

Re:Meh

[smash]

Then either buy new hardware or run an unsupported OS. Example device? I've yet to run into hardware that is not supported by WIndows 7 short of 2002 or previous video cards, and rather ancient disk controllers.

Re:Meh

[drinkypoo]

It's not too late to buy Windows 7 :)

With any luck they'll still be releasing security patches for that when Windows 9 comes out

Re:Meh

[dragon-file]

The other big unresolved sticking point has been attachment to specific software. In the case above, she has used some ancient version of "print master gold" for a while and would very much like to continue doing so. It's this kind of thing that we tend to shrug off that keeps people from switching

Couldn't agree more. I had a friend who brought me his laptop... The OS drive was shot and the XP CD key was gone. So I replaced the drive and installed mint. His first complaint was not having office so i recommended wine. He came back 3 months later saying it was running slow. His solution to the Office problem was to install a cracked copy of XP in Virtual Box.

Moral of the story: Software makes the average user HATE change.

Re:Meh

[vux984]

The return of the start button is an acknowledgement of the fact that people using a mouse as their primary interface expect to be able to click something.

The hot corners were not 'discoverable' or 'intuitive' for a desktop, with a keyboard and mouse.

Bringing the button back, but still having it go to the start screen is fine. It's not what you want, but it does solve a real problem.

(what if I wanted to navigate based on a graphic that was previously on the screen or based on instructions that I wanted to keep up)

Yes, that the scenario that keeps me up at night. Lets cram everything installed on the coputer into a heirarchical nested menu in the corner of the screen, in case the user needs to see a graphic while navigating it.

Then when this draws a complaint, the seller installs a stick and clutch pedal, but leaves the automatic transmission.

Tiptronic is here to stay.

This is more just MS not wanting to bend.

Its always a tough call. Microsoft wants an OS that works well on the TV, on the Desktop, and on a tablet. The old start menu is only good on a desktop. I can understand (and even agree) with the design of the start menu.

I also think, despite your love letter, that the windows 7 start menu is a piece of SHIT. I like pinning apps (but I can pin apps to a taskbar toolbar in win8 and that works the same), and I like the quick search widget to run programs. But the actual start menu, is garbage -- a heirarchy of folders crammed into a small popup in the corner of the screen? That's ASININE if you forget for a second that you love it so much and really think about it from a UI design perspective.

Windows 8.1's start screen is a lot more usable.

What's scary is that 3rd party companies had no problem doing this almost on day one.

Yes, 3rd party companies that had an opportunity to do anything... decided to slavishly copy the start menu -- the stuff that it was good at... and the stuff that makes no sense at all.

If you are going to write a custom start-menu for windows 8 for god's sake, give us pinned apps, the search widget, and the shortcuts to controls, computer, etc... but don't idiotically recreate the "everything on your computer in a hierarchical menu popup" ... clicking all programs should bring up the start screen, or at the very least a MUCH LARGER window with the start screen's capabilities. Because the start screen is actually much BETTER at that.

nobody I've spoken to is happy with this.

Few people like change. And focus on the negative, even if changes are actually better... then they just focus on having to "learn something". In the case of the 8.1 start screen -- its a mixed bag... its better at some things, its not as good at others. It could have been done better, but what it was replaces was garbage too.

OSX doesn't have a start menu.

It has launchpad which does the same thing as the start screen in much the same way (full screen, paged, easily searched by typing). It has a dock that lets you pin things to it like the task bar. And it has spotlight. And nobody is having a fit about how.

Windows 8 doesn't need the classic start menu. It needs spotlight.

The windows 8 start screen has all of spotlights search capabilties and more, which is good and should be kept; and its better than spotlight for actually searching for something, but spotlight is better UX for a power user to quickly pulling something up that you already know by name. --

"spotlight-search powertoy for windows 8" is what we need, not "Start8" etc trying to cling to the legacy start menu.

Re:Meh

[MrNemesis]

Obligatory Penny Arcade.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/06/28

Re:Meh

[Joce640k]

I've been recommending OS X instead. The hardware is nice and it just works.

Sure, so long as you don't mind paying Apple prices for hardware plus Apple prices for every last little cable/connector/widget that isn't included with it. Standard connectors, peripherals which will work on the next generation of computer...? Hah!

And ... only if you only want to run software that Apple is 100% happy with. No hacking, please.

Re:Meh

[Karzz1]

If the friends machine is barely capable of running XP, what makes you think windows 7 is going to be an enjoyable experience? And I call bullshit that W7 is as fast as XP. This only works with 2GB+ RAM which I am guessing the aforementioned machine does not have. Try to run W7 on 1GB -- it is a swap/page fest that will burn up the hard-drive before drawing the desktop.

Re:Meh

[ISoldat53]

I liked the comment in the ARS article asking "How do I remove the Start Button from windows 8.1."

Re:Meh

[Stormwatch]

Wine is quite complicated to use. You were foolish not to recommend OpenOffice / LibreOffice.

Re:Meh

[slaker]

In point of fact, the Modern Interface doesn't even have a file manager or cut/copy/paste support. This is entirely irrelevant since I have yet to see any user make even a single effort to use even a single modern-style app other than the PC settings stuff. Ignoring the Modern Interface is definitely part of the standard operating procedure for dealing with Win 8(.1).

I suspect the interface will ultimately get better and more smoothly integrated with time. Right now I don't particularly care. It's just software on the machines that doesn't get used, something that it has in common with every OS released in the last 35 years.

Re:Meh

[JohnnyMindcrime]

I don't think gaming is anywhere near the big sticking point that it used to be when it comes to choosing Linux over Windows.

Microsoft essentially killed big commercial PC gaming on Windows when they took the decision to split DirectX 9 and 10 across XP and Vista respectively. Making that decision when they did hurt the Windows games development community considerably because it fragmented game development when most people were still on XP, and was precisely the scenario DirectX was designed to avoid. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a deliberate tactic by Microsoft to drive people to X-Box for their gaming needs, but it undoubtedly had a huge negative impact on commercial PC gaming releases.

In the longer term, it's actually an extremely good thing to have happened because it's killed the stranglehold big PC games companies had on Windows games and opened the floodgates for indie developers to start making games again - not to mention the impact of Kickstarter in getting games released that, under big corporate control, would never have seen the light of day.

Steam is going to be an interesting turning point for gaming on Linux, but as some analysts are already saying, the actual turning point will likely only be if and when there's a killer game on Steam for Linux (or SteamBox or whatever it's name is) that gets people buying it in their droves.

I would argue that big applications like MS Office and Photoshop are bigger obstacles to the adoption of Linux. In reality, most MS Office and Photoshop users (who are, let's face it, probably using pirated copies anyway) would find that LibreOffice and The GIMP do everything that they need to do anyway but are just too lazy and/or scared to try something new. Sure, there are a minority of "professional" users who need the specific features in MS Office, Photoshop and other big commercial Windows applications, but they really are a tiny proportion compared to the overall userbases of them.

Re:Meh

[Sir_Eptishous]

I like pinning apps (but I can pin apps to a taskbar toolbar in win8 and that works the same), and I like the quick search widget to run programs.

Bingo! Thats all that I need on 8 and I haven't had any issues getting to whatever I need quickly, either using a mouse or keyboard. No big deal.

Re:Meh

[pruss]

If you use Classic Shell, then you get an upgrade: the inflexible closed source feature that was standard to Windows for 17 years is replaced with a much more customizable open source feature. It would be nice if it was bundled with Windows, though. :-)

(To me it's not a change, as I've been using Classic Shell on Win7, too.)

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Leaving the pricing discussion aside (which is somewhat valid: you can get cheaper hardware in many cases. You are, however, making the sacrifice of possibly getting cheaper hardware).... What's non-standard about USB? Also, Apple gives a free compiler out, and you can run anything you want on Mac OS X. The Mac App store is an option, not the default.

Re:Meh

[rescendent]

having the start button actually does help in one use case, having a windows rdp session. Ever try to remote manage a windows 2012 server via remote desktop without being full screen? It is f-ing hard trying to hit the start corner. I'm happy that they added the start button back even if it only launches the start screen instead of old style menu.

Click application icon top right of the window (the one that gives you drop down of move, restore, close etc)

Then choose Remote Commands, this gives you the options;

• App Commands
• Charms
• Switch Apps
• Start

Bottom one is what you want.

Re:Meh

[citizenr]

This is a METRO button, there is no start menu.

Re:Meh

[chuckugly]

If they can't run Windows 7, gaming support isn't really an issue.

Re:Meh

[marcosdumay]

The search is fast, and you really just type and hit enter.

Windows 8: Almost as easy as Bash.

Re:Meh

[chuckugly]

But I hated Windows 7 when I first started with it, it seemed that stuff (especially in Control Panel) had been moved around for no readily apparent reason and a couple of months to comfortably find everything I wanted to as quickly as I could in XP.

About 4 years from now people will be complaining about Windows and saying this about Windows 8.1. People complained about Win2k, WinXP, Win7, and now Win8.1 - and eventually they discover the new is actually fine. I have been using Windows 8 on my dev VMs from within a few weeks after it was out; it's fine, even though stuff has been moved around for no readily apparent reason.

Re:Meh

[danfromsb]

I'm not a super big fan of Apple's policies, but honestly, how does this shit get modded insightful? Don't like thunderbolt, use USB, those cables cost $2. Don't like the apps in the Appstore? Then install from the developer's website. Like hacking? Then install homebrew and have at it. I mean seriously, vim comes standard on OS X, and you can easily install clang or gcc to build whatever you want. XCode is free!!!! You need to pay absolutely nothing, beyond the cost of hardware, to build and distribute software for OS X.

Re:Meh

[timmyf2371]

I press my Start key in Windows 8 and am presented with my most commonly used apps which I can select with a mere single click. If I want another application, then I just start typing its name and guess what: it's another single click.

Not sure where you're getting your timing from. Have you actually used Windows 8 and the metro-style start menu?

Re:Meh

[dragon-file]

What makes you assume I didn't? He tried it for a day and gave up cause it wasn't MS office.

Re:Meh

[ultrasawblade]

>Try to run W7 on 1GB -- it is a swap/page fest that will burn up the hard-drive before drawing the desktop.

It's not that bad. Windows 7 is actually efficient and decently responsive.

I had Windows 7 running for a long time on a 1GB 900Mhz Celeron netbook. Aero didn't work, and of course things were slow, but not unusably slow.

Now, I didn't run any real applications on it, like Photoshop, etc. but for basic browsing, etc. and even basic Office use it was OK.

Except for Flash. Flash videos would always stutter, even with plenty of free RAM.

Fortunately, there's Minitube, though I never used the Windows version (Linux is on that system now).

Re:Meh

[TangoMargarine]

Users always say it's faster. If we really want to sacrifice all things on the Altar of More Speedifying, why don't we just remove everything but one giant button that you press and it gives you an orgasm? That's what everybody *really* wants, right?

No. I want the ability to use my fucking computer LIKE A NORMAL PERSON. I don't own a tablet and don't want one.

Re:Meh

[DarthVain]

Windows 7 support will be around a very long time.

A) No corporate or government enterprise shops will be moving to 8 or even 8.1 as they all moved to 7 (or in the process of).
B) It will be a huge install base that will likely pressure MS to extend whatever support deadline they decide to have.
C) IT shops are not going to want to run multiple version of Windows, so new Windows 7 systems will still have to keep being deployed.

I just built a personal Windows 7 system last month, and it was not a decision I worried much about.

Re:Meh

[KingMotley]

This is more like the guy who got used to driving a horse and buggy and then cried about how cars sucked because he was used to whipping the horse to make it go faster.

Seriously, get over it. The start screen is better than the old piece of crap start menu.

Not surprisingly, nobody I've spoken to is happy with this.

Well, now you have.

Re:Meh

[phlinn]

Here's why i prefer the start menu to the start screen: I read fast. It's faster to scan an alphabetized list of folders than to try to figure out which little picture has something to do with the program I'm looking for or read the name of programs that are widely separated, in no particular order, and aren't all the same size. The start screen version of all programs isn't as bad, but I really shouldn't have to right click to get it. It should be an obvious link on the main start screen. The ability to start typing to find the program you need is still present, but there is no visual clue that the start screen supports such a feature. I'd go a little insane supporting Windows 8 without the keyboard shortcuts I know and love.

All that being said, the start screen isn't my main issue with Windows 8. I've got 3 major complaints: Mousing over a section of screen bringing up new things you can do with out any visual cues whatsoever that there's something there, those hotpoints acting differently depending on whether you are in a metro app/start screen or desktop/regular program, and generally the completely different behavior between metro and desktop modes. Especially for Metro IE and flash. Can't load flash on a site you want? Guess you need to download it. Except doing so loads adobe's version for the desktop mode, even if you downloaded it in Metro. The metro version still won't load that site you want. Please feel free to try explaining the issue to a clueless user. Next, clicking and dragging a program to the bottom in order to close it is much harder to find by experimentation than having a visible button to click to close the window. Their tutorial doesn't even mention it. I made myself check the getting started guide, and they never tell you how to close a metro app. Someone else had to tell me how to do it. Given that metro apps aren't presented as a window, I didn't even assume I'd be able to click and drag an app around while it's active. It's like they don't actually want you closing apps or something...

Re:Meh

[timeOday]

Win7 may be only a moderate RAM hog, but it is a big-time disk hog. It annoys me because most of my use of Windows is in virtual machines, and they're just more time-consuming to work with when they're enormous. That, and SSD has put a bit of a premium back on drive space (particularly when using enough space to store multiple Windows VMs on them).

Re:Meh

[scott9693]

Yes, but Microsoft could stop selling OEM & Retail versions of Windows 7 and decide to only sell it through Volume licensing.

Re:Meh

[X0563511]

I'll let Brian Boyko explain it, he does a much better job of it than I could. The entire UX is fucked.

Re:Meh

[Roadstar]

The 8.1 start button actually has one good reason to take up all that extra space: It now provides more area where to right-click to bring up a menu with shortcuts to many useful functions. Back in Windows 8.0 it was only available when you dragged the cursor to the corner and got the Metro preview. According to a quick survey on IRC, it turned out that not that many people were aware of that handy context menu there. Can't blame them, though. Microsoft's done quite a job with hiding all the stuff Windows 8 can do.

Re:Meh

[Urza9814]

Oh god I remember Print Master. I'm pretty sure I've gotten it to run quite well in Wine though...

Re:Meh

[vux984]

The start screen version of all programs isn't as bad, but I really shouldn't have to right click to get it.

Agreed. 8.1 gives you the obvious link, and also lets you set that view as the default so you can go straight there everytime if you prefer.

Mousing over a section of screen bringing up new things you can do with out any visual cues whatsoever that there's something there, those hotpoints acting differently depending on whether you are in a metro app/start screen or desktop/regular program, and generally the completely different behavior between metro and desktop modes.

I don't like Metro on a desktop computer either. I find it good on a tablet/phone and on my HTPC, but I don't use any metro apps on my desktop. Fortunately, you don't need to use them.

Mousing over a section of screen bringing up new things you can do with out any visual cues whatsoever that there's something there, those hotpoints

I agree. I don't like hotcorners - and its a reason i like the start 'button' making a return. I'd like to see the rest of the hotcorners disappear from the desktop as mandatory as well.

I'm not sure what hotpoints you are referring to if you mean something beyond that though.

Especially for Metro IE and flash. Can't load flash on a site you want? Guess you need to download it. Except doing so loads adobe's version for the desktop mode, even if you downloaded it in Metro.

Yeah - metro IE vs desktop IE is clumsy. I don't use metro IE on my desktop at all, ever, though, and can't imagine any reason for doing so, so its kind of a non-issue for me.

As for closing metro apps from the desktop -- yup that's another gaffe. I use alt-f4, then learned about the 3 finger trackpad swipe -- which is fine for the logitech pad i use with the HTPC... but drag-to-close via mouse -- i just learned that just now from you. There's no question they half-baked metro for desktop keyboard/mouse users.

But 8 isn't metro. I have 8.1 preview on a desktop, and other than the start screen I don't ever see any metro stuff.

On my HTPC I use metro for netflix and the video player and that's about it.

I don't have a windows tablet, but we do have a lumia 820 in the house, and the modern UI generally works well there, and I'd have no problem using it on a tablet. But yes, modern ui or metro on a desktop mostly sucks.

But deciding on 8.1 for the desktop based on metro apps is like not getting Windows 7 because you didn't like the new Windows Media player. You don't have to use it. I never did. :)

Re:Meh

[Urza9814]

Anywhere. Every retailer I could think of to check was still offering Windows 7. Most OEMs still offer it pre-installed too. Nobody wants Windows 8.

Re:Meh

[Urza9814]

Compatibility with Office would only be a valid argument if various versions of MS Office were compatible within themselves...

Back when I was in college I found that the Office docs the administration sent out would rarely open properly if I tried to view them in the labs on the default of Office (yes, even in Penn State University, where most systems should have been nearly identical) -- but when I tried on Libre Office they always worked fine, and I never had a complaint with forms I emailed back from LO. Also never had a single issue with Powerpoint presentations that I was making at least once a week from LO on Linux and then running in Powerpoint on Windows.

Christ, to this day I still frequently see email at work along the lines of "please send this in .xls, I cannot open .xlsx"...Thankfully for all involved it seems that PDFs are increasingly becoming the preferred format for any type of text at least rather than .doc(x/m/b)

Any customer who stops doing business with someone because their emailed files aren't pixel-perfect is going to pretty swiftly remove themselves from the marketplace...which is why we need to be pushing LO, because that's not how it should be, and maybe switching to more open software and formats will let us finally be able to exchange freakin' *text documents* with some degree of confidence....

Re:Meh

[Urza9814]

Not that I don't believe you, but I have yet to find someone who likes Linux "better" that isn't a hardcore nerd/geek person who actually knows what parts are in their PC.

My mother (who has trouble connecting her iPad to a wifi network without my help) was using Linux for several years on a netbook and she loved it. Granted, I had to set up Thunderbird and such for her -- but I had to do the exact same thing on both her PC and her iPad, so there's no real difference there.

Actually I know quite a few people who were running Linux netbooks during that whole craze, many of whom *were not aware it wasn't Windows*.

Re:Meh

[Urza9814]

Nobody *loves* the start menu...the problem is that they replaced it with something *worse*.

KDE has a "start menu" that works fantastically. OpenBox perhaps even better.

I don't want to create my own folders -- I want a launcher smart enough to figure them out for me. I would rather have one line of text saying what the program is than some giant Duplo block with a vague icon. And I want to be able to see more than a half dozen or so programs at one time. Christ, Windows 8 looks like it was designed for a preschool.

"Just click on the happy pastel pictures..."
"'e' is for Enternet!"

Re:Meh

[DarthVain]

True, but that will not effect the length of support at all. Just means consumers will have less choice. If MS keeps making poor decisions they will only open up the market for others to take more market share from them.

Case in point: RIM

Once significantly dominant in consumer market, lost consumer market due to lack of innovation, will eventually lose enterprise market if not careful.

Re:Meh

[robthebloke]

Really? There were people claiming that XP wasn't as good as ME? Or that Windows Vista was better than 7? Really? Windows 8 is turd. It's the first version of windows I got a refund for.

Re:Meh

[Pseudonym Authority]

Then he needs to buy a new computer. It is not Microsoft's responsibility to maintain an entire OS for his archaic piece of shit just because he's too fucking cheap to upgrade. Even 2GB of RAM only cost like $30. Or he could take a pick of the millions of Linux distros out there, but that would take more effort than whining about how Microsoft is fucking him I guess.

Re:Meh

[roc97007]

Sadly not an option if there aren't Windows 7 drivers for your hardware.

Is that really an issue? When I upgraded from XP to 7, the only thing I had to leave behind was an old scanner. And scanners are, like, $49 on Amazon.

If you upgrade to Win 7 Pro, which includes the Win XP compatibility features, there are very few issues. Even where there aren't Win7 drivers, Vista drivers will often work.

Even my copy of Office 2000 and my ancient video capture card worked on Win7.

Re:Meh

[readacc]

It's also nice, now that I'm used to it, to be able to just hit the windows key and start typing to get the program i want. The search is fast, and you really just type and hit enter.

But... I can already do that in Windows 7, PLUS I have the traditional Start menu structured list so that I can manually pick a tool if I don't quite know the name of it but I do know the company/category folder it's located in.

In Win 7 I get the best of both worlds - search and tradition program selection. In Win 8 the traditional program selection has morphed into something rather ugly and cumbersome.

Re:Meh

[smash]

Depends if your time is free. I'm a nerd and it took me 2 hours of fucking around to get this wifi adapter working, which will break every kernel upgrade. And again - was listed as Linux compatible on the box.

My Macs? 1 hour once a year for an OS upgrade.

Re:Meh

[smash]

Also.... i can run any software I want on my mac. including Linux.

Re:Meh

[smash]

Gets modded insightful because most of the slashdot population these days are fucking idiots, and have never actually had any ownership experience of apple devices to base their opinion on, they just parrot bullshit they heard from some guy on the internet somewhere in 1995.

Re:Meh

[gl4ss]

..it's not a start button.

it's an image of a start button. I know it's hard to comprehend the difference, but the point is, pressing the bottom left corner did the exact same thing as this new "go to start screen" "button" does.

they still want everyone to go to the start screen all the fucking time to get spammed by their app partners and to get distracted to using those apps instead of the work they were going to do... because that is the metric that they go by. if a live tile succeeds in getting in the way of you working then it's a success! that's fucking retarded!

Re:Meh

[Karzz1]

I am not arguing one way or the other about what is or is not MS responsibility here. I don't condone piracy, but then again I don't use MS software either.

I was only arguing that GP's comment insinuating Windows 7 will run ( presumably as well ) on the same hardware as XP when the GGP stated the hardware was already pushed to its limits with XP is not realistic.

Lastly, if the machine is stressed running XP I would guess that puts it in the early P4 era of machines. You aren't going to find 2GB ( 2x1GB ) of 133 laptop memory anywhere for $30; if you can find that at all any more.

Re:Meh

[phlinn]

The issue I was referring to with hotcorners (yes, that's what I meant by hotpoints. misremembered the name) is that the options you get by mousing over the top right corner is different in desktop mode and metro mode. I don't recall on the others.

By letting me avoid Metro and letting me make 'all programs' the default view, some of my distaste for Windows 8 will be gone, although first impressions are hard to overcome. I still think the start menu is a better setup, at least if you read faster than you interpret icons and grok folder hierarchies. I will freely admit that I probably don't think like Joe user, so maybe it shouldn't be default, but I don't think it's completely asinine like you do.

Re:Meh

[vandamme]

I'd like to see if Print Master gold runs on Wine/Mint, but I don't have a 5-1/4 floppy drive any more.

Re:Meh

[cavebison]

> But I hated Windows 7 when I first started with it, it seemed that stuff (especially in Control Panel) had been moved around for no readily apparent reason

This. I have XP on my laptop and 7 on my PC. Not sure if 7 will run on the laptop - and don't care. Over a year of using 7 on the PC and I STILL don't like it. I don't like not being able to right-click on the top-left window icons. I have to click ALT-UP just (keys that are too far apart) to simply go up a folder. Network settings are a maze to navigate. Everything seems to take MORE clicks in 7 than in XP. It's several steps to just find my IP address, where it's 2 steps in XP.

I can't customise the Start menu. W. T. F. Yes I know I can TYPE stuff, but you need to know the name of the stuff you want to type - there are no tags or descriptors to look up when typing. It took me ages to find the screen-shot tool. Typed "screen", nope.. "shot", nope.. "grab", no.. "snap", no.. because it's called.. ffs now I've forgotten again, so I need to look for it in the Programs menu.... which means CLICKING EVERY FUCKING FOLDER to open it up. What a waste of time. In XP, it's a simple matter of moving over menu items, and I can REARRANGE them into easy to remember categories that suit me. As the Programs menu gets big in 7, I have to *scroll*, which is *more* effort, and less efficient, than just seeing a huge menu pop up like in XP. Except in XP I can tame it by rearranging stuff.

Windows Explorer in 7 has an ugly grey bar along the top, except - amazingly - they've finally though to add a "New Folder" button. I'm impressed at the thought that obviously went into the UI there. Oh wait.. I want to sort the file list by date, not name. How do I do that? Where's the option for it? Under the "Organise" button/menu thing? Nope. Try alt-v - yep that exposes the menu. A menu they thought it would be great to hide, except it's the one I want to use a lot. I can un-hide it, except now there is twice as much vertical space used up for no reason. But can I hide the extra grey bar which has buttons on it I won't ever use? Nope. What's this new UI element even called? It's not a "toolbar", nor is it a "menu bar". I don't know. MS doesn't know. It's just there to take up space. I just thank god it's not a freaking Ribbon.

I do like the new Task Manager. But there's apps for that on XP. I don't like the way window previews pop up in my face just when I'm doing alt-tabs. I just want to see the name of the program and the document it has open. How do I tell which document I want from 5 previews of a mass of text? Most of the time it's pointless and visually jarring. The simple XP task switcher with big icons and text underneath was quick and easy to interpret. In so many ways, Windows 7 makes me do MORE work, with my eyes and brain, for the most simple of tasks. When it comes to UI, I'll take practical and fast over pretty every day. For me, that's XP.

TL;DR - used Win 7 on another machine for over a year. Still prefer XP, which wins in simplicity, efficiency and not getting in my way.

Re:Meh

[Hamsterdan]

And right on top of the search box, there's "All Programs", just like XP/2k/9x

Re:Meh

[balbus000]

It's also nice, now that I'm used to it, to be able to just hit the windows key and start typing to get the program i want. The search is fast, and you really just type and hit enter.

Which you can do in Windows 7. I can't tell if this is an honest review, or if paid shills are just becoming really, really good at emulating rational human thoughts. What benefits are there to upgrading from Windows 7? Not just ways to get back functionality that was taken away, what actual improvements have there been?

Re:Meh

[asmkm22]

I don't know about actual improvements for various people. There were none for me personally until I needed to start using Server 2012 Admin Tools, which I couldn't do from Win 7. But you're right, for anyone who is happily using Windows 7 and has zero need to upgrade, then don't upgrade. For those looking to replace a computer or buy a new one, all I'm saying is that Windows 8.1 isn't nearly as crappy as the reputation of it's predecessor would lead you to believe.

I'm not a paid shill, and I'm not trying to encourage people to randomly upgrade when they have no reason to. I'm also not about to lose sleep if you think I am.

Re:Meh

[chuckugly]

There were in fact mods and modes that would allow a user to make WInXP look like 9x/NT/2K because a lot of people disliked the "cartoonish" look, yes, absolutely. It's always the same, people with short attention spans repeat the same old shtick every time. The reference to Me is a red herring.

Just when you thought it was safe....

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Windows 8.x is back, and this time, it's personal.

Or it feels that way. I've been working with the Windows 8.1 RTM. Many more things seem to break on the Windows 8.1 RTM that did on Windows 8. Mayhem ensued. Kiss your SQLE 2005 goodbye if you haven't already. Change your Setup.exe's to Vista compatibility if you don't want them to take an hour to install. Other than that, no worries.

Re:Just when you thought it was safe....

[SJHillman]

If it's like most major software products, I'd expect it to take a month or two for them to patch the major headaches. I'm looking forward to 8.1 as an excuse to reinstall Windows 8. When I first got 8 about a year ago, it gave me a lot of stability issues and software incompatibility issues (especially with Chrome and Notepad++ for some reason) that were mostly patched within the first month. By the second month, it was running pretty smoothly. I only went back to 7 because of a few remaining driver issues, which I would be surprised if they haven't solved by now.

Re:Just when you thought it was safe....

[jones_supa]

I have also been running 8.1 RTM for a couple of weeks and my experience is similar. Little glitches here and there. Microsoft has released quite stable stuff lately so I didn't expect this level of bugginess.

Some examples:
- On various laptops, the screen brightness indicator displays wrong dynamic range after coming out from suspend or hibernation
- When a device is connected to the computer, a "Device Setup" dialog appears and it can hang there forever
- The automatic installer for .NET Framework 3.5 gets stuck and the manual DISM utility has to be used instead
- Windows Explorer displays Korean characters correctly, but Japanese characters are displayed as squares
- When I have two monitors connected (8.1 can show a taskbar on both screens) and set the taskbar setting to "Never combine" (a Vista-style look), the taskbar button labels are shown only on the primary display
- When I turn Bluetooth off, the settings application freezes for a long time
- The verification code to authorize my Windows Live account is often not successfully sent via e-mail

Re:Just when you thought it was safe....

[error_logic]

The taskbar button labels not showing up on a second display may be a feature to reduce screen space used. For some reason lately I had a glitch where the taskbar wasn't visible on the bottom of the screen but putting it on one side worked well. Surprisingly I've adapted to it, and now it makes sense to have just icons on the second screen's taskbar--it uses less space since the taskbar can be narrower horizontally.

I don't expect anyone to adapt to a side-positioned taskbar randomly, but strangely it works.

Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[xianzombie]

Before everyone starts bashing on Win8 (even though it does, to some extent, deserve it), I feel obligated to state:

The OS:
1. Performs better than Win7 (for me)
2. Has been perhaps the most stable iteration of windows (for me).

The UI:

Is horrible in terms of the default layout. Adding back in a 'normal' start menu (via Classic Shell, etc) and turning off the charm bars are key to making it a usable GUI, IMO.

With the above 'tweaks' the biggest thing I miss comparing 7 to 8 is the loss of being able to search files directly from the search bar. Perhaps that' some option/tweak I missed somewhere along the lines.

Will I try 8.1? If I can do it for free, yes. Will I give them money for it? NO!

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[xianzombie]

Well, in true Slashdot fashion, I didn't read the article or full summary thereby missing:

"The upgrade is optional (and free) for existing Windows 8 users, though if one looks at the changes, it's hard to imagine why those already on it wouldn't upgrade."

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[Sockatume]

Why treat "the UI" as seperate? The human-computer interface is as much a part of the OS as anything else. To be frank, if I can't talk to the computer efficiently, it doesn't matter how well the software and hardware can talk between each other.

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[Twinbee]

For searching you should be using Locate32 which is light years ahead of the search on Windows.

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[Anonymous Coward]

The UI isnt that bad. You just click the steam tile and select the game from the list. You then roboot in Linux to do real work.

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[xianzombie]

Why? Android MIUI vs HTC Sense vs Others; XFCE vs KDE vs Gnome, etc.

The default UI for Win8 basically sucks, but some tweaks make it a functional system again

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[biobogonics]

The OS:
1. Performs better than Win7 (for me)
2. Has been perhaps the most stable iteration of windows (for me).

Classic Shell solved my problems with the UI.

So far Win 8 does one thing better than Win 7 (or Vista). It handles printers well.

1. I attached an older LJ 1020 to a new Win 8 laptop and installed the latest driver. PDF files would not print, so I rolled back to the latest *recommended* driver. Removing the printer and installing the new driver worked quickly and cleanly.

2. I have two networked HP printers on my LAN. Rather than install a full software suite, I chose universal printer drivers for PCL 6. Most of the time, when my network or router goes down, the printer assignments get lost. Printing sent to my B&W printer goes to my color laser, or just does not work at all. I finally gave up and installed printer specific drivers on all of my Vista and Win7 machines. Ick.
Win 8 auto detected both printers. It required *no* drivers to be loaded. I've had several power outages. Since then, my networked printers do not get lost on my Win 8 machines.

Re: Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[jd2112]

This is (fortunately) the direction Microsoft is going. In fact the GUI in Windows Server 2012 is a feature that can be removed or installed like any other optional component. In my experience it doesn't normally even require a reboot.

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[Kingkaid]

With the above 'tweaks' the biggest thing I miss comparing 7 to 8 is the loss of being able to search files directly from the search bar.

8.1 will let you search for files in the search bar. Currently you can do it, but you need to press the down arrow twice to get to "files".

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[0123456]

The default UI for Win8 basically sucks, but some tweaks make it a functional system again

'My Honda Civic basically sucks as a dragster, but after I tweaked it with a jet engine it worked fine.'

Why run an OS that sucks by default?

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[citizenr]

turning off the charm bars

You can never turn them off completely, hot corners, hot edges, default key binds on Win key - you simply CANT turn this shit off. Its hardcoded.

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[Espectr0]

Classic Shell 4.0 (released a few weeks ago) lets you find files directly from the search bar.

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[Megol]

Learn to read. He said "The default UI ... sucks ...". So your comparison becomes something like: 'My Honda Civic in the automatic transmission mode basically sucks, but after I tweaked it to manual mode it works fine.'

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[0123456]

Yeah, so why buy a car with an auto transmission when you want a manual?

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[xianzombie]

Brilliant! Now to update my Win8 box.

Meanwhile, to avoid further nerd-rage, I'm also switching this laptop over from Ubuntu to Mint...so yeah...doin' *nix stuff! (Though I never really got the hang of BSD, but last I tried that was several years ago)

Re:Win8 as a UI vs. an OS

[antdude]

FYI, http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-users-have-two-years-to-update-to-windows-81-before-support-ends ... MS will support original W8 for a couple years.

I want to search just my pc

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the use case for me typing something in the windows search charm thing and me wanting to get results from my PC and web pages, music, and photos from the Internet? Searching for files or file content on my PC already got harder with vista. Now this? If I want to search the web I can use google or bing or whatever I want. When I search my PC it is because I need to find a file on my PC. Also I do not want my data on sky drive.

Re:I want to search just my pc

[Anonymous Coward]

"As with many other things in Windows 8.1, it's cloud integrated, so your actual reading list is stored on SkyDrive and...."

No, thank you; this is a deal-killer.

Re:I want to search just my pc

[xianzombie]

Cuz man...the Cloud....ain't ya heard! That's where all the important files are going.

*blech*

Re:I want to search just my pc

[jones_supa]

I don't even need to search my PC. There's these things called directories. In those I put my stuff nicely where it belongs.

I'm not sure if it serves anyone to have this colorful jumble of icons mixed with local files (with no idea of their location), application shortcuts and web results. At least me it only makes nauseous and disorganized.

Re:I want to search just my pc

[duke_cheetah2003]

mount -t cifs //mywindowspc/c$ /mnt
find /mnt -name "mew" -print

Enjoy!

Re:I want to search just my pc

[X0563511]

FIrewall time...

Re:I want to search just my pc

[X0563511]

Eh, just install cygwin or whatever and you can do it locally without rebooting.

Re:I want to search just my pc

[Ksevio]

Until you want to find some configuration file from some program. Where's that going to be?
Maybe where you installed the program? If it's an older program not updated for Vista and running as admin.
Maybe in the virtual directory of where you installed the program? For older programs without a manifest ran as a normal user.
Perhaps in the user appdata? Local? LocalLow? Roaming?
Maybe in the CommonData? ProgramData?

"Hurray!" said no one.

[TWiTfan]

[crickets chirping]

DO NOT WANT

[nightsky30]

Just loaded Linux on my Father's PC yesterday :)

Re:DO NOT WANT

[xianzombie]

Somewhat sadly, after a HD failure, we loaded up Ubuntu on the wife's laptop. While it did everything she needed, she really just didn't like it, and things like Skype just didn't play nice. (Which was sad, as I was working out of town for about a month and wanted to see her and the kid).

That said, once it gave up the ghost, we picked her up a replacement laptop with Win8. She wouldn't let me tweak it, but somehow she can handle the default Win8 with Metro better than Linux with KDE, Gnome, or XFCE. *shrug*

Re: DO NOT WANT

[ColdWetDog]

You missed it. God is now using Linux.

Screw the desktop. This is really big.

Re:DO NOT WANT

[znrt]

and things like Skype just didn't play nice

skype doesn't play nice on any platform. it's was shaky software even before ms bought it.

she really just didn't like it

what can i say. time to upgrade to a new wife, maybe?

Re:DO NOT WANT

[magic maverick]

Skype = NSA endorsed spy software.
Use SIP (e.g. Ekiga is free software, and offers free accounts) or something similar instead. Safety, you know.

Re:DO NOT WANT

[omnichad]

If these people really were so happy about it, you would assume that it spread

Being happy without Windows is spreading. The difference is that people are getting iPads and Kindle Fires instead of Linux PC's. I know a 30-something couple who have only 2 iPhones and an iPad between them - no computer and no non-cellular ISP.

Re:DO NOT WANT

[SteveFoerster]

Whereas you are a troll without even that much of an objective.

Re:DO NOT WANT

[squiggleslash]

Right, because SIP is encrypted...?

I can understand being wary of Skype (hey, I was anti-Skype before it was cool, I'm such a sipster - sipster, geddit? it's like hipster but never mind) but advocating a switch to SIP on the grounds you don't want the NSA to be able to intercept your communications seems like bad advice.

Re:DO NOT WANT

[magic maverick]

If you want encryption, just use it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol#Encryption

With Skype, you are guaranteed that the NSA has access. Sure they have access to SIP as well, but they have to work slightly harder. And by continuing to use Skype, you are in effect saying OK to the NSA (and anyone at Microsoft who's interested and has access, including the too smart for their own good, and up to no good, cleaner, who has a bizare grudge against society) listening in.

Re:DO NOT WANT

[JamieIanMacgregor]

Agreed. Mint is far more suited to a windows user, I gave ubuntu with unity a good shot and hated it. Love Linux but unity just made it horrible to use, couldn't be arsed changing WM as other things were not working right so just formatted and installed Mint, loving linux again.oh, except for Wifi being killed on every kernel update but thats an easy fix.

Now with new exciting NSA backdoors!

[magic maverick]

I don't trust MS at all. Why, I reckon that MS Windows 8.1 will come with new and exciting backdoors for the NSA (and any other security agency or criminal gang (but I repeat myself)). OK, I might be exaggerating slightly, it won't come with deliberate backdoors as such, simply holes that haven't been fixed yet, guaranteed to be around for at least a few months.

I'll stick with my Ubuntu thanks (until I try Debian again later this or next month, and see if it works). Now, you might say that Ubuntu has its flaws, and well, it does. But, if you don't use Unity or the Software Centre, you can get a perfectly good system with minimal issues, and no obvious privacy concerns. (I use 12.04 with Gnome 3.something. I have issues with this version of Gnome, but I still prefer it to KDE (which kept crashing on me) and Xfce (which doesn't have enough fancyness, I do have a fancy powerful laptop, I like a bit of eye candy).)

Remember: if you are worried about security or privacy, don't use a closed source OS connected to the Internet.

Re:Now with new exciting NSA backdoors!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how MS brought out 8.1 as acelebration for the new budget

Ubuntu 13.10

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu 13.10 is being release today, a date planned long ago. Noise about the service pack for Vista 8 is only intended to distract from coverage of Ubuntu and keeping it out of the news.

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[DoofusOfDeath]

Meh, given my feelings about the direction Ubuntu's desktop environment has taken over the past few years, I was already not paying attention.

I'll be somewhat more interested when the Linux Mint derivative of Ubuntu 13.10 comes out.

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[X0563511]

The only Ubuntu announcement that I would be interested in is if they decide to use MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE, or KDE for their desktop, and throw vanilla GNOME 3 and Unity in the trash.

Unlikely to happen.

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[ducomputergeek]

Meh, distro XYZ has become "too mainstream". I've got to start using distro New Hotness for the next year, maybe two. Then it will be "too maintstream" and it will be time to find another Linux new hotness distro. Maybe it will be SteamOS next. Until it gets to be too mainstream, or people complain, "But it's not really GNU/Linux just like Android isn't really Linux because it's not GNU!" And then people wonder why the year of the Linux desktop has never materialized.

Well that and the fact that Apple made a better Unix desktop. The people I know who switched to OSX circa 2002 were Linux users, not windows. And they were people like me who saw the best of all world in OSX. We had our *iux development environment, support of major commercial software such as MS Office & Adobe Products as well as at least some major game titles, and laptops with hardware that actually worked. (Okay I know that last part has gotten better, but still every time in the past decade when I've gone to try Linux on the desktop again something hasn't worked without a workaround)
When Apple moved to Intel chips, well then we could run Windows via virtualization or bootcamp allowing people like me to have 1 machine, work, and test on both OSX & Windows.

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[Bacon Bits]

That's horribly unfair to Vista to call this "Vista 8". Vista's problem was that it was slow because it prioritized looking good over not just background services, but foreground user programs. Windows 7 fixed that and that's why it's a fantastic operating system. Windows 8's problem is that it's difficult to use because it's missing features, has a UI that doesn't indicate what things mean, and designed for interface devices other than a keyboard and mouse.

Windows 8 has a core usability problem. For years and years Microsoft tried to get Windows XP's desktop window manager on PDAs (remember those?), smartphones, and tablets. Then Apple came out with iOS, and it was awesome on PDAs, smartphones, and tablets. And Google came out with Android, and it was awesome on PDAs, smartphones, and tablets. So some idiot at MS said, "Hey, people don't want a desktop interface! They want a touchscreen interface!" Now they release Windows 8, which is actually a pretty great smartphone OS and tablet OS... however it's a complete shit interface for the desktop! It's the same sin committed in their phone strategy now committed in their desktop strategy.

They literally had to build in to Windows 8 a mechanism to drop back to the pre-Windows 8 interface to use programs. They spent years and years working on this interface, and then made it so that you only use it to access the now-neglected desktop model. It feels like you have to start the normal windows manager from the Metro interface. It feels like you have to work through another layer to be able to get to the applications.

The most amusing thing is that Ubuntu did the exact same thing when they were market leaders in the desktop Linux arena, and they alienated much of their userbase, too! Debian is above Ubuntu currently on Distrowatch, and that was absolutely unthinkable before Unity.

Now we hear that Apple is going to try to make iOS the only OS for Mac, and completely end OS X.

Why do OS developers forget that nobody uses a computer to use an OS? They use a computer to use applications. The OS's job is to facilitate that and to stay the fuck out of the user's way! They seem to think that just because a phone, a laptop, a tablet, and a desktop are all computers that people want to use them in the same way and for the same things. I can't conceive of how ludicrous this idea is. Nobody complains that they can't

To take the SlashDot obligatory car example, it's like they decided, "Hey, the steering wheel, gas pedal, and brake pedal work great for our cars. Let's use the same thing on our motorcycles! And cruise ships! And airliners! And helicopters! And starships!"

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[SteveFoerster]

Kubuntu isn't good enough?

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[JohnnyMindcrime]

Well that and the fact that Apple made a better Unix desktop.

I would not for one minute argue that Apple made a desktop that a lot of people like as an alternative to Windows. But you're actually arguing against the whole design ethos of OS X in that's it's designed to be simple to use for people that don't know a lot about computers. Put UNIX in front of those people and they wouldn't know where to begin - so whilst I accept it has a BSD core, OS X is not UNIX, merely a derivative of UNIX, since the command-line power tools that make people use UNIX are hidden from OS X users by default.

The people I know who switched to OSX circa 2002 were Linux users, not windows.

I don't know where you get the facts to make this statement from but it's not my experience. In 2002, the penetration of Windows XP was still very low, Microsoft was still suffering with negative backlash from Windows ME and if you wanted a reasonably good desktop Linux for the time then you had a choice of Red Hat, SuSE, Debian and Slackware (with maybe one or two others). None of these had much of the slickness and ease of installation that Linux distros do now, therefore if (like me) you were using them then, then you were probably a die-hard Linux geek anyway who was still using Windows for some stuff.

I therefore believe your statement to be false - people switching to OSX in 2002 were disillusioned Windows people, not Linux people.

Okay I know that last part has gotten better, but still every time in the past decade when I've gone to try Linux on the desktop again something hasn't worked without a workaround

Again, you're contradicting yourself. I accept you like OS X more than any other OS but OS X is specifically designed to run on a very small and specific subset of hardware which is why you can only run it on Apple machines. But then you complain that you find Linux difficult to install on a laptop that contains one of possibly thousands of possible combinations of hardware?

For your information, I recently bought a Lenovo laptop on which to run Linux and all the hardware on it ran pretty much first time with little or no difficulty. In actuality, I did a lot of research first, looked at countless laptop model specs and after a couple of weeks decided that was the model that would be the best one to work out of the box with Linux, in my price range and with the power and features that I needed. And that, incidentally, is basically the same process Apple do when they choose hardware to go in their Macs - so if you had problems with your Linux laptop then, sorry, that's your fault for not doing your research and going to ask questions from people in the know, and that's why you as a consumer have a choice of going to Apple who have done that research for you up front.

When Apple moved to Intel chips, well then we could run Windows via virtualization or bootcamp allowing people like me to have 1 machine, work, and test on both OSX & Windows.

But earlier on in your posting you said "OSX is the best of all worlds" - in which case you've again contradicted yourself by stating you need the capability to run Windows on your Mac. So which is it to be then?

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[X0563511]

Kubuntu isn't the Ubuntu you get from Ubuntu's website.

Re:Ubuntu 13.10

[TangoMargarine]

Well, I wouldn't be switching away from Ubuntu if they hadn't pulled the exact same Windows 8 "I shit all over your standard desktop workflow! Ha ha!"

XFCE forever. It Just Works (tm).

This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[onyxruby]

This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been to begin with. What this doesn't do is fix the issue with the missing Start MENU. The result is that every time you need to load an application through the menu you are forced back into the abomination that is the Metro interface. This is a deal breaker for the enterprise and shows Microsoft's continued contempt for their customers and what their customers need.

A tablet interface has no business on a desktop and Microsoft should have made it completely optional. Fixing boot to desktop was a half hearted start to be able to say they were listening to feedback - sort of. However the stunt with the Start Button instead of the Start Menu was a slap in the face to the enterprise and large OEM's that have been begging Microsoft to restore the Start Menu.

Sales will continue their worst downturn in history since the advent of the personal computer. OEM's will continue to lose money hand over fist. Enterprise customers held with contempt are evaluating third party vendors they never would have considered before. If you force people to use a new interface regardless, than it's an opportunity for your customers to pick what that interface is going to be. Sales of Mac's to the Enterprise have hit record highs, Linux is breaking through where it never did before. People are even toying with Chromebooks.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[Theophany]

Enterprise customers held with contempt are evaluating third party vendors they never would have considered before. If you force people to use a new interface regardless, than it's an opportunity for your customers to pick what that interface is going to be. Sales of Mac's to the Enterprise have hit record highs, Linux is breaking through where it never did before. People are even toying with Chromebooks.

This seems a tad hysterical. Enterprise users will continue to use W7 for a while yet. It still works, is still supported and is less of a headache to maintain for the tech guys than upgrading everything to work with W8. Businesses aren't clamouring to upgrade all their machinery just because MS has a newer OS.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[justthinkit]

The result is that every time you need to load an application through the menu you are forced back into the abomination that is the Metro interface.
.

I installed Classic Shell and that was the last I saw of start tiles. I installed apps from Classic's Run and partied like is was 2002.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[onyxruby]

The worst downturn the industry has ever seen is a bit hysterical, seriously? The entire industry is losing billions of dollars over something that is being rejected by consumers at a level never before seen in history and you think I'm being hysterical? Do you pay any attention to the industry whatsoever?

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/10/08/northamber_fiscal_13/
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238326/Windows_8_takes_blame_for_brutal_PC_sales_slide
http://www.electronista.com/articles/13/04/10/apple.toshiba.beating.industry.average.still.suffering.downturns/
http://www.statesman.com/news/business/slump-deepens-for-global-pc-sales/nXH6c/

Things are so bad that some OEM's have stared risking inclusion of third party start menus in a desperate attempt to get consumers to start buying PC's again. Your right that the enterprise will keep using Windows 7 and skip over Windows 8 just like Vista. However unless Microsoft fixes things with Windows 9 (Windows Blue includes a transition to yearly updates to the OS) they will also skip other versions. By the time the enterprise is ready to transition off of Windows 7 it is entirely feasible that other companies (Apple, Ubuntu, Google etc) will finally be ready for the enterprise.

The Start Menu really is that big of a deal.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[NewWorldDan]

I've found the start menu to be a complete non-issue. Where the damn thing totally breaks down is switching between the classic desktop and Metro apps. There's 2 competing UI mechanics going on that don't play well with each other. This isn't a huge problem right now because there are so few Metro apps, but it's going to get worse.

The bigger news today is that Windows Server 2012 R2 and Visual Studio 2013 are both out today as well.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[onyxruby]

Which is great for a single user on their own personal computer. However the idea of doing that for the enterprise with tens of thousands or a 100,000+ systems is something that I should never have to do. Star Dock, Classic Shell and like kind programs shouldn't be needed to begin with and there are questions of scalability, stability, support and so on (all the more so since it would be a core app). It's simply too big of a kludge and not worth the risk unless you are financially invested in Microsoft stock.

It's a bit like Firefox. I used it personally at home for years while simultaneously refusing to even consider deploying it within the enterprise. What works great for the user doesn't necessarily scale for the enterprise and the product has to be both mature and predictable. The programmers behind a product might be the best on earth, but the needs of the enterprise go beyond simply filling the check box of does the program do 'x'.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[sandytaru]

Or you can type the name of the program and hit the enter key and open it. It's actually made things faster for me than having to point and click on some programs. Need a screenshot stored fast? Print Screen, Windows Key, "p a i n t", enter, CTRL V, CTRL S, done. All without ever touching the mouse.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[justthinkit]

Agreed. But there are a lot of things that enterprise techies should never have to do. Yes, Star Dock, Classic Shell (and Start Shell that I went for) all bring additional complexity.
.

Your use of FireFox is like my use of Opera. I have it set up with a massive HOSTS file and JS disabled by default and enabled on a site-by-site basis. But would I set up the browser this way for other users I support? Not a chance.

What can be said but that "systems are complex" and we have to adapt or perish.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[onyxruby]

It can be done, but let's look at what you did. You used a series of keyboard commands to take and save your screenshot. However this required:

Print Screen - dedicated special key many typical users don't know about
Windows Key - everyone knows this, no problem
paint - remember how to spell the name of the program - big problem for non standard applications!
enter - confirming what you typed - users have to be trained though
CTRL V - non-intuitive and something you definitely have to train people on
CTRL S - non-intuitive as well and another thing to remember.

In essence you have a series of commands to memorize instead of a simple visual interface that you can stumble your way through. There is absolutely no doubt that these kind of short cuts have been available since the earliest days of Windows (other OS's have them as well). Unfortunately this would require a training class to teach everyone how to use as well as helpdesk time to remind people for follow up. Likewise a similar training class would be required for how to use the Metro interface.

My last employer had over 30,000 systems. Another recent one I worked as an architect at has over 100,000 systems. I know you can do what you described, but in order for Bob in Sales, Suzy in accounting and tens of thousands of others to know this it going to take a lot of training. This training could be in the form of a CBT in which case I have licensing, testing and delivery considerations. The training could be in the form of classroom training in which case I have logistical issues involving that. I could try to have trickle down training where I turn Bob's boss in Sales into a trainer, but that that tends to be a disaster.

All of these would quickly run into costs that would be sky high and in most environments training would never be approved. I've seen organizations look at the training costs and instead send emails to try to train users on this kind of thing. The result is always either a flood of calls to the help desk or users who remain untrained and use a product wrong. Any which way I go I am losing productivity across an entire enterprise.

Frankly anybody incompetent enough to force their enterprise to go through that instead of sticking with the same menu structure that doesn't require training to begin with deserves to be fired. No architect is going to do that to their organization, and the result is that the enterprise simply refuses to use Windows 8 and published adoption rates show deployment of Windows 8 is the lowest of any Windows operating system ever.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[grumpyman]

"XXXXX continued contempt for their customers and what their customers need" - isn't this a common theme for a lot of tech companies' products. They tried to 'guess' what customers want NEXT . Most failed and only a few succeeded (e.g. some Apple products). Incremental improvement will keep customers for now but does not make people buy new stuff, or get new people to buy their stuff. Or you try the Blackberry way, you stick with what makes you successful and be incremental on improvement, and you died in the long run anyway. These are all part of the innovation cycle, and MS just happens to have a big war-chest.

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[phlinn]

you could do that in 7 as well...

Re:This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been

[Urza9814]

Need a screenshot stored fast? Print Screen, Windows Key, "p a i n t", enter, CTRL V, CTRL S, done. All without ever touching the mouse.

And on Windows XP you can do Print Screen, WIN, R, mspaint, enter, ctrl v, ctrl s.

Is pressing 'R' really so difficult that not having to do so is worth trumpeting as a fantastic new feature of Windows 8? Heck, you could even press WIN+R in the same step if you like...

Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jkrise]

1. No improvement in user interface. Touch sucks on the desktop and Microsoft knows it. A Start button without a Start Menu is useless.

2. Metro style apps are very painful to deploy in the Enterprise; even for those with Subscription (Dis)Advantage.

3. Still not immune from viruses and worms - needs continuous stream of patches; customer remains at the mercy of Microsoft; like the forced ditching of XP which works perfectly fine.

4. Many existing licensed software such as SQLE are not supported in 8 series; so all that money is wasted expenditure.

5. Still no native support in the OS for cameras; SIM cards, etc. even Android is better in that respect despite being minuscule in size compared to 8.1.

The list of drawbacks continue; nothing to write home about; despite these paid shill reviews.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Joining Yet Again]

3. Still not immune from viruses and worms - needs continuous stream of patches;

Yeah, that utopia really is proving hard to reach.

customer remains at the mercy of Microsoft; like the forced ditching of XP which works perfectly fine.

Yeah, fuck Microsoft with its 12 year support cycle. Versions of OS X and Linux from 2001 are still in mainstream support.

5. Still no native support in the OS for cameras; SIM cards, etc. even Android is better in that respect despite being minuscule in size compared to 8.1.

Eh, my webcam works fine in Windows 8 without extra support. I assume Android has SIM card drivers because of u no it's used for 'phones a lot.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[wonkey_monkey]

3. Still not immune from viruses and worms

You say that like it should be easy to fix.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jbmartin6]

A Start button without a Start Menu is useless.

I use Windows 7, and I haven't used the Start Menu in years. I find it much easier to simply type enough of what I want (after hitting the 'start' button) to bring it up, then arrow down to it. I am told, though cannot confirm from experience, that Win 8 works the same way, just type into Metro and there it is. For example, I can type {Windows button, "Add or r"} to get to Add/Remove Programs. {Windows, "Fire"} brings up Firefox, and so on. Honestly, I think the 'Start Menu' is hideous and clunky. So, opinions vary on this point.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Skiron]

3. Still not immune from viruses and worms

You say that like it should be easy to fix.

It is - install a GNU/Linux distro.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[wonkey_monkey]

Hah! Yeah, that one never gets old or patronising.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Joining Yet Again]

What are you talking about? Linux isn't immune to viruses and worms.

And your vigorous handwaving didn't actually address the main point: nobody gives 13 year consumer support cycles except Microsoft. Trying to get stuff working on non-contemporaneous versions of Linux is way harder than on Windows - it may be possible in principle if you have the source, but that's an open vs closed source software argument which rarely applies in practice except among cadres of geeks.

MS isn't stopping you from supporting SIM cards or GPRS, and it's only imposing hardware restrictions if you want to re-sell discounted licences, which is sorta what Apple does except that Apple says, "You can't sell it at all because fuck you."

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jones_supa]

Still not immune from viruses and worms - needs continuous stream of patches

Actually these days MS has pretty good toolkit against malware: the standard NX protection, signed binaries, Windows Defender, Windows Resource Protection, and User Account Control. All of those are quite well implemented tools with minimal degradation to system performance. And it's really not a continuous stream of patches -- usually you are disturbed only once per month with a handful of patches.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[ljw1004]

Really? You say that Ars and Wired run paid shill articles? That's quite an accusation.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Anonymous Coward]

Try running Foxpro on Windows 8.

http://mattslay.com/visual-foxpro-on-windows-8/

You were saying...

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[omnichad]

Yes, it's almost exactly the same. Still jarring to have a context-switch, but it works.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Xest]

Unfortunately it never gets right either.

Linux may be less prone to viruses for whatever reason people may wish to dispute, but it's certainly not immune to viruses, not by any measure.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jkrise]

What are you talking about? Linux isn't immune to viruses and worms.

But much much more immune compared to Windows. And it costs nothing to upgrade the kernel or the packages that are vulnerable to exploits.

And your vigorous handwaving didn't actually address the main point: nobody gives 13 year consumer support cycles except Microsoft.

This is a bullshit argument at several levels. Along with the XP operating system, MS released IE6 with ActiveX controls and many features that it stopped with IE7, and broke with IE8 and unsupported in IE9 and over. So a paying customer who invested in the XP operating system cannot upgrade his browser to IE10 or IE11. Nobody knows why a user needs to upgrade his entire Operating System just to run a newer version of browser! Same holds good for Office, Mail and other bundled apps which came with XP.

Many applications developed with current versions of Visual Studio do not work with the browser, database or .Net runtime which shipped with 13 year old XP (minus the Service Packs; which screwed up even device drivers; let alone applications). So to say MS gives 13 years of support to XP is wrong.

Linux distributions cost very little to upgrade or maintain; and they do not break earlier versions because none of the components of the distro are engineered with any company's shareholders in mind.

MS isn't stopping you from supporting SIM cards or GPRS,
MS isn't providing the necessary drivers in the kernel either. The drivers are to be provided by the SIM or GPRS vendors, often buggy, incompatible with each other; and cannot be used like on other OSes such as Android.

it's only imposing hardware restrictions if you want to re-sell discounted licences,

Why? Why does MS restrict what minimum screen resolution is offered on a Windows 8 tablet; what minimum clock speed processor is used; what storage options are provided, etc.?

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jkrise]

I find it much easier to simply type enough of what I want (after hitting the 'start' button) to bring it up, then arrow down to it. I am told, though cannot confirm from experience, that Win 8 works the same way

So you have this thing called the mouse attached to the PC; but think using the keyboard to launch programs is better? And you find it acceptable that 99% 'normal' users of desktop PCs should work the same way too?

It's like not using your dick to have sex with your girlfriend; and expecting everyone else to indulge in oral sex like you do. I can guarantee you it doesn't give the same 'user interface experience' at all.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jkrise]

Because hardware requires software support, and unrestricted driver access is a security risk. That, and they don't users getting boned by unscrupulous hardware vendors..

If it is acceptable to include the interface normally used in phones on desktops; why not include the drivers for hardware commonly available on phones; on desktop the OS as well? Why can't SIM cards and cameras be directly integrated to the PC hardware instead of going the USB route? Why can't MS themselves write the drivers to get around unscrupulous hardware vendors? (Not that MS has any scruples, but you were saying.....)

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[JohnnyMindcrime]

Eh, my webcam works fine in Windows 8 without extra support. I assume Android has SIM card drivers because of u no it's used for 'phones a lot.

About three months ago I bought a new Lenovo Ideapad laptop - it had Windows 8 installed, I couldn't buy it without it.

I installed Windows 7 on it, W7 didn't recognise either the Ethernet controller or WLAN controller out of the box, I plugged in an old Belkin USB Wireless dongle but it didn't recognise that either, and there were no Windows 7 drivers for the old USB dongle. So instead I downloaded the laptop drivers onto a USB stick on another PC and got them installed that way.

I finished the Windows 7 install then started the Gentoo Linux dual boot installation on it. The Gentoo installation CD didn't recognise either built in network interface either, but it did immediately recognise the old Belkin Wireless USB dongle - at which point I did the installation, booted it up with a recent Linux 3.10 kernel and it recognised all the network interfaces.

So all-in-all that's a win for Linux supporting older hardware and note that I didn't have to go off and download all the drivers for it - with the latest kernel it picked up everything.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Joining Yet Again]

Why can't SIM cards and cameras be directly integrated to the PC hardware instead of going the USB route?

What the fuck?

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[Sir_Eptishous]

I pin everything I need to my taskbar, then once I've windows keyed M to the desktop I've got what I want. If I need something else I use "run" or search via the annoying windows search. But the key is for me to just pin everything to the taskbar or make shortcuts on the desktop. What is ridiculous is that MS forces the tile bullshit.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jkrise]

Why can't SIM cards and cameras be directly integrated to the PC hardware instead of going the USB route?

What the fuck?

How do you attach a SIM card or camera to your Windows 8 Phone or tablet / Surface? They both come pre-installed, pre-configured and with the right drivers written by Microsoft. Why is it hard for Intel or any motherboard mfr to integrate these peripherals directly instead of through the USB? Why should the (unscrupulous) vendors have to write the drivers for these devices? Why can't Microsoft themselves define proper standards and drivers in the OS itself? If they can bring the phone interface to the desktop, why not the hardware options and software freebies on the phone ecosystem as well?

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[jkrise]

Exactly what kind of integration are you suggesting Microsoft and other companies like Intel and AMD pursue?

The exact same integration that Microsoft and Intel have already successfully provided with the Surface Pro for instance. On the Surface Pro, the SIM card, the camera, the applications which make use of these devices (making calls, receiving calls, sending an SMS, taking a picture, a video, sending that video etc. etc.) are all integrated and provided by Microsoft themselves. On the desktop, since each SIM vendor or camera vendor writes his own drivers; there's no standard or uniform way to build apps to address or make use of these devices. Unlike on the Windows Phone or the Android Phone. And yet the desktop has more powerful hardware and a more versatile OS than phones and tablets. A pity.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[alyandon]

Actually, that doesn't work exactly like it did in Windows 7. In Windows 8, the search feature is divided between apps and settings.

So, in order to find something in the control panel like "Add/Remove programs" you'd have to switch to the start screen, then select "settings" instead of "apps" and then start typing what you are searching for.

Very much a step backwards from the Windows 7 search experience.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[timmyf2371]

Maybe it's a geek thing, but I prefer using my keyboard in a graphical environment too. A mouse can be good for some tasks, but if I'm in work mode then it's likely that I'm using the keyboard anyway and so to continue using the keyboard makes perfect sense.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[david_thornley]

Yeah, fuck Microsoft with its 12 year support cycle. Versions of OS X and Linux from 2001 are still in mainstream support.

Yes, but Mac OSX and Linux have had more than one decent version since 2001. XP was introduced in 2001, Vista in 2007, 7 in 2009, 8 in 2012. Microsoft waited six years to come out with a dog, and eight to come up with anything resembling a worthy successor. (Vista wasn't all that bad by 2009 either, but it was too late. Its market share has never been anywhere near XP's.)

If Microsoft had come out with an improvement over XP in 2003 or 2004, XP would be one of those ancient versions that was good in its time but nobody used anymore. Instead, it had eight years to entrench itself.

A 12-year support cycle for Win 2K would have been impressive devotion to an old OS. A 12-year cycle for XP is barely adequate.

Re:Not much improvement; drawbacks continue

[david_thornley]

Actually, Linux is pretty resistant to viruses per se. So's Windows. The real dangers nowadays are technically trojans rather than viruses, and no OS is immune to users doing things that seemed like a good idea at the time.

Linux has some security advantages over Windows (although the horribly insecure default sudo implementation), but it's not nearly what it was.

Meanwhile in the forest...

[PeterHammer]

...another tree fell without a sound

no no no!

[slashmydots]

"and is winning positive reviews"
This is the biggest lie I have ever heard. Now you search your computer for vacation photos and get bombarded by bullshit Bing links. The start menu still doesn't exist. I'm pretty sure it still takes a computer engineer to find the shut down button. It's absolute garbage.

Re:no no no!

[wonkey_monkey]

Any review which doesn't declare 8.1 to be worse than 8.0 counts as a positive review. Don't you know anything about marketing?

Re:"winning positive reviews"

[gstoddart]

Who is making those reviews?

Dude, it's in the summary -- Ars Technica and Wired.

You can choose for yourself if you trust them. You could even read them if you cared since they're linked in the summary.

And the world...

[Alejux]

...holds it's breath!

Re:And the world...

[bobbied]

Ahhh.. So THAT'S what the blue screen of death is...

laugh

[koan]

Windows is cyclic, Win 98 Ok, Win ME terrible, Win XP Ok, Win Vista terrible, Win 7 Ok, Win 8 terrible.

Re:laugh

[damnbunni]

You forgot Windows 2000, which was pretty good.

Oh wait, that was immediately followed by XP. Which was immediately followed by MCE, which was also decent.

Oops.

Re:laugh

[koan]

I didn't forget it, it just didn't work with the theme.

Re:laugh

[koan]

XP was easier for the consumer.
It's been too long and I can't recall, but I think 2k had NT issues with drivers and various other things.

I mean they all do right?

But XP from the start was just easier to use IMO.

Windows 98b

[RawGutts]

For some reason when I see this, I keep thinking back to Windows 98 Second Edition or Win98b and how it came out only a year later also following the main Win98.

Re:Windows 98b

[omnichad]

For some reason, I think of Windows XP. Only a year later, Service Pack 1 came out. Or Windows Vista - less than a year later, SP1 came out. Well - with Windows 7 it took 14 months. So you've got me there.

Re:"winning positive reviews"

[justthinkit]

No, it's people who earn their living writing articles about MS systems. From their perspective, any new operating system is a great chance to sell page views. So of course MS can do no wrong.

Spare 3 bucks for real start menu

[kennycoder]

http://www.startisback.com/ You won't regret it..

My clean PC runs Xubuntu

[tepples]

The only Ubuntu announcement that I would be interested in is if they decide to use MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE, or KDE for their desktop

You're in luck. Ubuntu uses Xfce.

Re:My clean PC runs Xubuntu

[X0563511]

No. xUbuntu does. Ubuntu ships with Unity.

Unless things have changed and when you go to ubuntu.com and click download, it actually forwards you to xubuntu instead?

The newest irritation of Windows

[Richard24]

Did anyone else misread the first few words of the summary?

Windows 8.1 BUYING positive reviews.

[linebackn]

The newest iteration of Windows has begun rolling out, and is buying positive reviews.

There, fixed that for you.

Does anybody besides the shills really think anybody not paid or threatened with leg breaking would give this a positive review?

For those not selected for the rollout

[Provocateur]

Here is the MAD Magazine fold-out version

Windows 8 |-------| .1 ---(fold until the two bars meet)

Result

Windows 3.1

Start Screen colors

[reikae]

I just finished applying the update, and the first thing I noticed is that now the icons on my start screen have different background colors. In Win8 they were all blue. Now in 8.1 some are blue, some are green, many are gray, and a couple are even bright orange.

If this is how it looked for others in Win8 then I fully understand what they meant about "garbled mess of icons". I wonder if there's a way to get it back to the calm blue. I have no problem with the "menu" being full screen, but this is a bit too much.

Oh btw, these are desktop application icons, I'm still looking for a useful Metro app...

It's all about Surface

[freezin fat guy]

Microsoft is willingly taking a hit for a few years in the hope that Surface will take over the tablet space.

If that ever happens people may very well like a desktop that apes their tablet. (Huge win if they would also like a phone like that.) But the only major selling point for Surface is that it supports Microsoft Office. So now everything depends on how much people want a tablet with Office.

My guess, which is admittedly uninformed, is that Surface will gain some traction in the business world. Any prognosticators out their with better info for us?

Re:It's all about Surface

[plover]

I certainly have not seen Surface tablets in the corporate world like I have iPads. A few people have them, but many still have their iPads as their go-to device for everything but actual Office and work stuff.

On the whole, people seem to like them about as well as they like their iPads, but there's been no giant rush to migrate. Most people who "needed" tablets are already on their second iPad, and they have heavily invested in their apps. To switch, not only do they have to buy a new Surface (and a keyboard), but they have to walk away from perhaps hundreds of dollars of app store purchases and lose data in the process; there just isn't a compelling reason for what is essentially a lateral switch for most users.

The other big unresolved sticking point

[sfm]

So would it be an option to run Linux as your base operating system, then continue to have XP running under Wine for those specific programs that are either ancient or have no upgrade path under linux?

Is this a reasonable path to allow XP usage well past its expiration date ? ?

Re:The other big unresolved sticking point

[Karzz1]

....then continue to have XP running under Wine for those specific programs...

I think you are a bit confused about what Wine is and how it is used. You can run many XP applications under Wine, but not all of them. You certainly do not run XP under Wine.

Having said that, there are many virtualization options that will let you run XP in all its glory. For the desktop, I prefer VirtualBox, but YMMV. For Linux there are several others as well (qemu, kvm, xen etc...) though none are as well suited to desktop use as VirtualBox, again IMHO.

Why people hate the Start Screen

[MobyDisk]

The reason people hate the Windows 8 start screen is because it displays politics. Seriously, take a look:

http://www.bleepstatic.com/tutorials/windows-8/introduction-start-screen/windows-8-start-screen.jpg
Peace envoy to visit Syria to broker ceasefire...

People do not want to see politics appear in their start menu. This is the stupidest idea in computing. This distracts people, it intrinsically makes them angry.

(Linux|BSD) + (Xfce|KDE|Cinnamon)

[tepples]

Why treat "the UI" as seperate?

Because it's traditional in at least the UNIX world to treat them as separate components. You can take GNU/Linux and plaster Xfce or KDE or Cinnamon on top of it. Or you can take an X11 based desktop environment on GNU/Linux and switch the underlying OS to FreeBSD.

I was at an MS developers event last year...

[ducomputergeek]

I still have my free copy of Windows 8 Pro that I've yet to install. Some of us were talking in the Elevator about it's over all UI changes and their argument made sense: develop a single consistent UI across all their platforms from Desktop to Notebook, to tablet, to phone to Xbox, oh and we expect that all future PC's will have touch screens.

It was that last part that was the gotcha. If Touch screens on laptops and desktops were really all that great, Apple would have been doing it years ago. The fact that they don't should tell you something. And having previously written point of sale software I can tell you that many of our clients tried touch screen terminals and often times went back to keyboard & Mouse.

The other huge problem on the desktop side are that business people have been trained on windows with their start menu for 15 years. Changing that presents a huge and massive disruption in workflow costing lots of money in retraining time.

Now if the metro UI was available at the touch of a button, much like Launchpad on the mac, but still had the windows 7ish start button underneath, that could of worked.

Re:I was at an MS developers event last year...

[ljw1004]

My wife has a macbook pro, while I have a Surface. She now often reaches her hand to the screen to try to swipe/scroll her screen, instinctively thinking it would work, then is a little disappointed when it doesn't.

Re:I was at an MS developers event last year...

[david_thornley]

Laptops with touch screens are feasible. When I use mine, it's at a distance where I can conveniently touch the screen. The reason it won't work for desktops is not technological but physiological: desktop screens at a good distance for being screens are too far to conveniently reach, and we're back to the old "gorilla arm" phenomenon.

I could see a Kinect-style camera trying to figure out where I'm pointing, but it's not going to be simple. I probably point slightly differently from different angles. Besides, the third version will be the first one that doesn't interpret scratching a mosquito bite as "close without saving", this being Microsoft.

Windows Mojave == Vista SP1

[tepples]

That or Windows Mojave, a name Microsoft used to trick people into dropping RTM-tinged preconceptions when evaluating Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Sacrificing a small amount of rigor

[tepples]

For the most part, Xubuntu is Ubuntu with xubuntu-desktop preinstalled instead of ubuntu-desktop. I tell people I run Xubuntu 12.04 LTS on my laptop, even though what I actually installed was the Ubuntu 9.10 CD with a sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop a month after release of 11.10. But the packages that are running are closest to what one gets from a Xubuntu image, and if I had to reinstall, it would be from a Xubuntu image. Sometimes I have to come up with fresh ways to say "If you want Xubuntu, you know where to find it", sacrificing a small amount of rigor for rhetoric.

Re:Sacrificing a small amount of rigor

[X0563511]

I know all this, but I realize not everyone reading these comments does.

My core point is that when you go to Ubuntu's website and download it, the interface you see on the live CD and receive on installation (by default anyway) is Unity (or that gnome3 fallback thing) and not something else.

Re:Sacrificing a small amount of rigor

[tepples]

My core point is that when you go to Ubuntu's website and download it

I did link to xubuntu.org, but I admit that might have been a little too subtle.

Re:Sacrificing a small amount of rigor

[X0563511]

We're talking about Ubuntu - the official Ubuntu from Canonical. Not what you linked, but what Canonical puts on UBUNTU.COM

Win 8.1 "Rolls Out"

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah. Like a fat, greasy turd...

Re:Win 8.1 "Rolls Out"

[Austrian Anarchy]

I tried to upgrade through my MS account using IE. NOTHING happened and I gave up after several tries. Tried again with Chrome, the download began right away. Interesting. I wonder what junk Toshiba wants to throw in there too?

Re:Win 8.1 "Rolls Out"

[arglebargle_xiv]

I tried to upgrade through my MS account using IE. NOTHING happened and I gave up after several tries.

I ran into the same thing trying to help a (non-technical) neighbour upgrade her PC. Unlike any other update, MS is forcing you to use the Windows Store to upgrade rather than making it a standard Windows Update. So she had to set up a Windows Store account, which she'd never done before. Then Windows Store wanted to install a mountain of crapware (Mettrash apps) that she'd never use and had no interest in. Then it demanded that she register a credit card number to cover the costs of all the apps she had no intention of ever buying from the store. Then she finally got a chance to look for the 8.1 upgrade. Problem is that no matter what she did, she couldn't find it in the store. After about an hour she gave up.

If MS doesn't make this thing available using Windows Update, they're going to have serious problems with adoption. The only time I've ever seen upgrades that were this painful was with "enterprise-grade" software from IBM.

Re:Win 8.1 "Rolls Out"

[Austrian Anarchy]

I ran into the same thing trying to help a (non-technical) neighbour upgrade her PC. Unlike any other update, MS is forcing you to use the Windows Store to upgrade rather than making it a standard Windows Update. So she had to set up a Windows Store account, which she'd never done before. Then Windows Store wanted to install a mountain of crapware (Mettrash apps) that she'd never use and had no interest in. Then it demanded that she register a credit card number to cover the costs of all the apps she had no intention of ever buying from the store. Then she finally got a chance to look for the 8.1 upgrade. Problem is that no matter what she did, she couldn't find it in the store. After about an hour she gave up.

If MS doesn't make this thing available using Windows Update, they're going to have serious problems with adoption. The only time I've ever seen upgrades that were this painful was with "enterprise-grade" software from IBM.

I did not have to do any of that initiating the upgrade through Chrome. It took about an hour start to reboot, IIRC. However, now when I am running any audio, like streaming radio, and I press play in Movie Maker, it mutes all of the other sound. It was NOT doing that before 8.1, and started doing it after 8.1.

Wrote MS about it and, of course, they came back with the standard "upgrade drivers" nonsense. I KNOW that is not the problem, but I upgraded every driver that came up from Toshiba (filtered for sound) and guess what? Problem still here.

So.. Did they fix the parental controls?

[bobbied]

Seriously, those are SO broken and easily bypassed that my kid figured it out the first week with 8.0...

Microsoft Scarface

[Sir_Eptishous]

They should have called it "Scarface", and had an ad campaign based around "say hello to my little friend!"

Win8.1?

[Sable Drakon]

No start menu? No thank you. I'll use Windows 7 for my gaming until it's EOL, by then Ubuntu should be a worthy sucessor for my gaming system.

Touch vs desktop

[zaibazu]

Someone bash into Microsofts skull that a UI has different demands depending how the main input is. I don't need my start menu spreading over my whole screen with ginournous buttons to pick an application.

Hell you could even diffentiate large table touch vs. portable touch devices, one approach just can't work great for all types.

If you have to run Win8...

[roc97007]

upgrading to 8.1 is something one does in self-defense. It's not really optional, if you want to keep some shred of your sanity. (Which means, Microsoft should really have charged for it.)

Windows 8.1

[hackus]

.1 reasons to upgrade.

Seriously though, what a huge yawn. Within a year or two I won't even need a windows machine to play games, the primary purpose of windows in the world right now.

The only people who will need to still use windows on a daily basis will be legacy corporations like Microsoft.

I already have my Linux servers, desktops and web/android apps. BONUS: I have all the source code for the security infrastructure that powers them.

Now, all we need is a Linux game machine for our Linux desktops. It is going to happen within a year or two now that the graphics plumbing is worked out and ATI GPU's are now fully documented, including the latest generation GPUs. (i.e. 3.12 kernel/X 1.15 and possibly Wayland far far far into the future.)

-Hack

I knew I still had this link

[marcosdumay]

That idea is clearly not new.

I work mostly from shells on a modern OS

[raymorris]

You can, if you wish, have a simple uncluttered interface and be able to do everything from the command line, only launching GUI programs when there's a benefit to a GUI (web and email).
That's the way I work. It's ten times faster than click-click-click-click-click through five levels of menus for everything, and whether I'm working on on the local machine or remote makes no difference. Any time I need to do the same thing several times, I can loop: "foreach thing; do something $thing; done".

At home, that clean, uncluttered interface runs on top of Linux. At work, it's Mac underneath. My interface is the same either way - a simple terminal in a POSIX environment.

I just updated to 8.1

[Holammer]

After it finishes updating you *have* to create a Live account. This was not required before so I set my birthdate to 1905 and name/surname to fückoffwanker. Choke on it Microsoft! I hope I can contribute in some small way by poisoning your data gathering algorithms.
Looking at the interface, I feel like I gained nothing from this except for multi-coloured metro tiles and a useless start button. Amusingly the system pre-installed a health app on the metro interface. Makes sense for a 108 year old.

I'm only putting up with this shit because of games, help me Gabe Newell, you're my only hope!

Extentions

[DarthVain]

Presuming it doesn't get extended several times like XP did.

I can tell you with certainty than enterprise business faced with looming XP support fail all upgraded to or are in the process of upgrading to Windows 7.
No large corporate entity or government is going to use Windows 8 or even 8.1.
With such a huge install base of Windows 7, support will be for a very long time, and there will be pressure on MS to extend even that.

I built a new computer last month, and intentionally put Windows 7 on it. A decision I am very comfortable with.

Unfortunately individual consumers have little choice however. Bought a laptop for Dad this summer. Choice was basically Windows 8 or buy an Apple. If I were a betting man I would say the only winner will be Apple. If they loosened up a bit on their elitist branding strategy they could really grab some market share. Right now if you are an individual consumer buying a sub-1000$ laptop from either a box store, or a manufacture, there is no competition, you are getting Windows 8 if you want it or not.

That's really good advice!

[zooblethorpe]

Hold it right there, you said it perfectly:

...W8...

That's the best advice I've seen so far! I'm happy to W8 and not install Windows 8.

Windows 8: Just W8.

Cheers,

And In An Unrelated News Story

[LifesABeach]

Today is October 17th.

Concerns About Security or Privacy? Vanished.

[StealthNet]

Just upgraded two PCs. a Sony Vaio VPCZ2290X legacy PC (with TPM) and a HP Envy2. *BOTH* were configured to use BitLocker Drive Encryption. Both were configured to ask for a PIN at boot. Guess what? Windows 8.1 upgrade not only booted the machine lots of times but it didnt ask for the PIN, not only once.

I dont know if I should worry. Guess that I should, only if I have something private stored on those (and I mean... something I dont want Microsoft or any government to get their hands on).

Once the upgrade completed, it started asking for the PIN again. Please correct me if I am wrong (I want to be!!) but, in my head, that means only two possible things:

1. Windows stores my PIN or
2. Windows has a key to secretly access bitlocker drives directly

I dont know what is worse.

To be honest, if I had any doubt about the complete lack of security, privacy etc on the platform, this simple thing just washed it clean.

Does anyone know when TrueCrypt will be available for Windows 8, with PBA?

8.1 mouse lag makes games "close to unplayable"

[Bobtree]

Windows 8.1 mouse lag reportedly renders some PC games "close-to unplayable"
http://www.pcgamesn.com/windows-81-mouse-lag-reportedly-renders-some-pc-games-close-unplayable

Wine anyone?

[hicksw]

Now is the time of Wine-for-Windows on the Desktop
--
On Fidonet, nobody knew I was a dog

Upgraded from 8.1 Pro Preview seamlessly

[Chadrach000]

Haven't had any issues from day one. Games great, no driver issues, faster boot than Win7, very responsive. What's the big deal? Time to move along...

Rolling

[brunnegd]

Rolling, and down the hill to the pond.

Win8.1 Problems!

[wolverine1999]

Win8.1 still has problems. I'm testing the pro N Uk English version which doesn't have WMP or the WMV codecs.
You can get alternatives but there are problems:
- Vreveal 3 doesn't work without WMP.
- Ashampoo Burning Studio 12 doesn't work without WMP.
- Cyberlink WaveEditor (part of PowerDirector) doesn't work without WMP.

I tried to following instructions to install the Media Pack.
Tried installing win8 media pack - not compatible with win8.1

Tried following instructions to 'add features to windows 8.1' - searching for this only gets me a microsoft page with instructions on how to do this.
I might try an upgrade to win8.1 pro (no N) next.