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HP Brings Back Windows 7 'By Popular Demand' As Buyers Shun Windows 8
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Gregg Keizer reports at Computerworld that Hewlett-Packard has stuck their finger in Microsoft's eye by launching a new promotion that discounts several consumer PCs by $150 when equipped with Windows 7, saying the four-year-old OS is 'back by popular demand.' 'The reality is that there are a lot of people who still want Windows 7,' says Bob O'Donnel. 'This is a twist, though, and may appeal to those who said, "I do want a new PC, but I thought I couldn't get Windows 7."' The promotion reminded O'Donnell and others of the dark days of Windows Vista, when customers avoided Windows 7's predecessor and instead clamored for the older Windows XP on their new PCs. Then, customers who had heard mostly negative comments about Vista from friends, family and the media, decided they would rather work with the devil they knew rather than the new one they did not. 'It's not a perfect comparison,' says O'Donnell, of equating Windows 8 with Vista, 'but the perception of Windows 8 is negative. I said early on that Windows 8 could clearly be Vista Version 2, and that seems to have happened.' HP has decided that the popularity of Windows 7 is its best chance of encouraging more people to buy new computers in a declining market and is not the first time that HP has spoken out against Microsoft. 'Look at the business model difference between Intel and ARM. Look at the operating systems. In today's world, other than Microsoft there's no one else who charges for an operating system,' said HP executive Sridhar Solur in December, adding that that the next generation of computers could very well not be dominated by Microsoft." Also at SlashCloud.
Windows 8 is designed around a touch-screen interface; one that is a struggle to operate via a keyboard and mouse.
For entertainment, a touch-screen interface is fine. But, believe it or not, people *still* do *real work* on desktop PCs. And for that use case, Windows 8 is a massive productivity downgrade.
Let's call a spade a spade: the touch-screen interface SUCKS on a traditional desktop or laptop PC. It's not a matter of "trying something new". It's a matter of using the right tool for the job, and the touch-screen interface is the WRONG tool for this job. To be fair, the linux touch-screen interfaces don't belong on a PC any more than windows 8. They belong on phones and tablets.
Fixed that for you
You joke but that's pretty much how it is:
Windows 98 -- Worked
windows ME --Sucked
Windows XP -- Decent
Windows Vista -- Sucked
Windows 7 -- Functional Again
Windows 8 -- Sucks Again
It seems to take them one generation to flush the problems out of each new release so windows 8 is basically "windows 9 beta"
Unfortunately, Microsoft has broken the pattern. You can go from XP to Vista to Windows 7 and each one is only a slight change from the previous version. Windows 8 however, is a horrendous piece of shit that changed things that didn't need to be changed, fixed things that didn't need to be fixed and broke anything that wasn't already broken.
Relabeling Windows 7 as Windows 9 would be the best ting they could do.
It:
1. Fits too much crap on your screen at once disorienting you.
2. Doesn't function as a logical tree-style menu.
3. Covers the whole screen.
So you pretty much reworded all the bad things about it to sorta kinda make them appear to not be horrible. Well done. You will have a good career in either advertising or politics.
This promotion actually made me go over and check HPs website out, only to be disappointed that the two laptops offered both had 1366x768 resolution screens. Come on HP. You outfit this Envy laptop with the latest i7 and 12GB of RAM, and then hobble it with such a lousy screen? I don't care what the operating system is, no sale.