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Windows 8.1 Passes Windows Vista In Market Share
An anonymous reader writes "With the release of Windows 8.1 to the world in October, January was the third full month of availability for Microsoft's latest operating system version, which was just enough time for it to pass Windows Vista in market share. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing steadily and eating into Windows 8s share, the duo only managed to end 2013 with 10 percent market share, barely impacting Windows 7."
Wake me when it passes XP
In all fairness I would bunch 8.0 and 8.1 together. Together they sum up to 10.58%.
No one is "forced" into purchasing a Windows machine of any type, let alone Win8/8.1.
New Egg and other places sell all the hardware a person needs to build his own desktop. There are several vendors for Linux laptops, and there is always Apple. Mobile devices free of Windows are all over the place.
It's more than a decade since I have paid for a Microsoft license. That was Windows ME - my worst and last mistake with Microsoft.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
8/8.1 really isn't that bad, the underlying OS is stable and fast, but for god's sake microsoft, just get it over with and release a proper start menu so desktop-UI users never have to see the modern-UI again. That's got to be the #1 gripe and the #1 reason people are avoiding 8/8.1 by a long shot.
I personally don't care about the start menu either way because WinKey+Q brings up a nifty search overlay without being too visually jarring and is very fast to find programs or files just by typing a couple letters, but the lack of a proper start menu is going to continue to hurt widespread adoption of the OS.
I think it's really interesting to compare various sources that attempt to measure these OS/browser market shares, because they're obviously measuring different subsets of the population.
Steam, for example, puts Windows 8/8.1 at a bit over 20%.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
W3Schools put it around 8%.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
In short, marketshare varies wildly depending on who you ask and none of these do a good job of actually measuring the entire market.
You are SO politically incorrect. You're not supposed to notice that the retarded kid is retarded, and you should NEVER notice crippled kids! You must be some kind of bigot - my progressive friends say so.
Oh - wait. I don't have an progressive friends. Forget I said anything.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The only percentage regarding Windows that I care about is what percentage of a reasonably priced SSD it will take up. Now, I realize that metric is subjective ("reasonable" being relative), but honestly, that's the worst part of the Windows tax: on a 240GB SSD, the footprint is something like 10%. Am I the only one who feels that's absurd?
Slashdot, news for fucking bastards, stuff thats fucked up the ass.
That was the original slogan but then marketing had to get involved....pfffttt marketing.
I personally don't care about the start menu either way because WinKey+Q brings up a nifty search overlay
... that is much cleaner, thanks. Still; I shouldn't be forced to use it. Maybe I can map it to an unused mouse button.
When I built my new PC I had the choice of which Windows version to install on it. I've used Windows 7 in the past and have Windows 8 on my work laptop.
So I went with 8.1 through choice. I *like* the Start screen, it's much more visual than previous incarnations of the start menu. Can't say I'm too bothered with the live tiles on a desktop machine, and still don't get the point of the charms bar. As an overall OS however, when taking into account the Start screen and the Explorer ribbon UI, I would choose it every time over previous versions of Windows.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
At some point a Microsoft update bricked my wife's laptop (HP Pavillion). Don't know how updating files could mess up the partition table but it did. We'd had enough of 8 so I used a spare license for 7 to upgrade it to 7 Pro. It's still Windoze but at least it's stable and doesn't have the sucky "Metro" (or whatever Microsoft is calling it now) UI.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Its a whole lot of noise about nothing. If you really dont like it then set boot-to-desktop and then the only time you need to see the only thing that has changed (the start screen) is if you need to open an application that isnt pinned to the taskbar
You make it sound like that scenario is rare - it's not and it's very frustrating.
I have no love for Win 8's UI. But Classic Shell to the rescue. My current system has the best of both worlds. Win 7 UI, Win 8 OS under the hood (which does have some nice improvements).
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I think Microsoft is using Windows 8 to force the Windows Phone UI down everyone's throat. Eventually, they will give up.
Their stubbornness is going to start affecting their enterprise business, so they need to wise up soon. Fortunately, the new CEO comes from the enterprise side so he will likely understand that they're playing with fire.
Aren't windows 8 and 8.1 the same thing?
did you forget to take your meds?
...WinKey+Q brings up a nifty search overlay
No need to press Q in that... just press the Windows key and start typing, just like in 7.
Honestly, if you ignore the Metro interface, Windows 7 and 8 are the same thing. Except 8 performs better. Get rid of the tablet interface and everyone would want to move to 8.
The Win+Q route has the advantage of seeing the desktop while typing.
That is going to depend heavily on who they pick as the new Chairman (it's looking like Gates is on his way out) and how interested the Board is in sticking with the whole "Devices and Services" thing. One thing is for certain: neither the new CEO nor the Chairman will have anywhere near the influence that Gates and Ballmer do, so I could easily see a scenario where the Board kind of runs rough shot over any strong long-term goals in support of trying to become the next Apple.
Keep in mind that once Gates is gone, pretty much everyone on the Board is the Silicon Valley type of guy, where the whole Devices and Services thing is pretty popular right now. Without Gates, in particular, we'll probably end up with an even less enterprise-friendly set of offerings over the next 15 years. After all, Apple has done just fine by practically abandoning their "pro" consumers, and that's the fruit MS is chasing.
Or you could buy a chromebook or one of the many android-based laptops (often tablet/laptop convertibles) or there's the dell xps developer editions which comes with linux pre-installed or Lenovo Thinkpads or failing all of that you could get a refund on the windows license if you dont want it as many people have done.
The only party with an interest in pretending Microsoft is the only game in town for pre-installed systems is Microsoft, there are in fact plenty of other options.
Well, even if that is just "two hard" in comparison to the "one hard" of using the start menu, I would still choose the option that is less hard. If a new version is worse than the old, then there is no reason to switch in my mind.
And when I see the user base at our company, which freak out if the icons on their desktop change place, I can say that for at least 75% of that user base "just start typing" is *definitely* "too hard"
You're being too kind on the Slashdot beta by just calling it "annoying". It's much, much worse than that. It's pure and total shit.
Every single aspect of it is flawed in one way or another. It wastes space. The font sizing is disproportionate. The text color and background color do not contrast enough. The layout is confusing. The story images are way too big and pointless. The discussion threads are far more difficult to read. It's harder to post comments. It feels a lot slower than the existing site.
The Slashdot beta is a failed software project in every single sense. The only sensible thing for Slashdot to do is cancel the project, throw away the code, apologize profusely to us for subjecting us to it randomly for at least a month now, and then never again do something as utterly stupid.
Of course, I don't think that'll happen. I suspect we'll see the beta site replace the existing site at some point soon, and it'll be a Digg v4-style disaster. The few remaining valuable users will flee, and Slashdot will wither more than it already has these past few years. It will be forever remembered as yet another casualty of a hipster-inspired "Web 2.0" design shitfest gone wrong, up there with Digg, GNOME 3 and Windows 8.
Windows 8 SP1 passes Windows Vista in market share.
Kicks in the ass are more popular than punches in the face.
Well, if you're on a mac, it kinda explains why you're so pro win8. MS sticking to 8 rather than rolling back to 7's UI is about the only chance apple has at becoming relevant on desktop outside US.
In case of win8, they probably just torrented 7 to install on it.
Apple laptops aren't really any more expensive than typical half-decent Ultrabooks or other models that focus on quality. And the OS X licence is currently free.
Wow are you honestly claiming home built machines and linux are an alternative for most people? OS X, iOS and Android I'll grant you. But the average Joe down the street couldn't tell the difference between a RAM module and a hard drive.
(you have to dig somewhere in windows 8 to "unlock the bios", reformat the drive for a different file type, etc)
That's not Microsoft's doing, the hardware vendor shipped the computer with Secure Boot enabled, which Windows 8 supports, but 7 does not. You can't blame them for enabling a new feature. If it's hard to go back, the hardware vendor wrote the user interface, not Microsoft, so put the blame where it belongs.
... only to find out that I couldn't get all the windows 7 drivers. Even basic stuff like the ethernet did not work. I had not experienced to what extent a new PC was non functional after installing the OS. I had to restore it back to windows 8, and buy a different laptop with windows 7 installed.
Once again, the hardware vendor was the one that decided not to distribute Windows 7 drivers. I've found many cases where the driver actually works with Windows 7, but the installer is specifically coded to refuse to run on 7. It's more of the hardware vendor trying to reduce its expenses by not training tech support staff on more than one operating system than an actual flaw with Windows.
Honestly, if you ignore the Metro interface, Windows 7 and 8 are the same thing.
If you ignore the Metro interface, and the desktop, and the apps, Windows 7 and 8 are the same thing.
I've seen a ton of people complaining about the new Office interface, for example, because it's apparently all been 'flattened' to look as crap as Windows 8 does.
Windows Vista is not that bad. It just needed a couple years of bug fixes. Microsoft did the smart thing by release a new version of windows with cosmetic changes, and a new name, once the bug fixes were in place.
I think Microsoft is using Windows 8 to force the Windows Phone UI down everyone's throat. Eventually, they will give up.
That lie keeps being spread and is somehow truth.
My 2007 era AMD turion from the Vista era disagrees. Vista is ssssllooooowww and takes several minutes to boot even on a fresh install. It swaps constantly and has 2 gigs of ram. Windows 7 on this ancient machine and it runs fine. Yes that is with the latest service packs too. The indexing service takes 20 minutes to build. Windows 7 a few seconds! network SUCKS. It is unusable in a moderate business environment.
True an i7 with 4 gigs of ram and a ssd will probably run it ok but these are Windows 7/8 era machines.
http://saveie6.com/
No, it's just a hilarious commentary, because everyone except few who appear to be either paid to say so, or have a vested interest in windows failing in desktop market say it's horrible.
And they're not saying it with empty words but with heavy wallets.
You aren't alone. A company I consult for ordered about 50 Win8 laptops to replace some of the old XP ones, and IT was quite startled to find out that absolutely NONE of the server stuff would connect to the new laptops. They did the exact same thing, rolling it back to the version of 7 they currently use, and there were new problems added on top of the sparse fixing of Outlook, Excel, etc.
Luckily they could get a complete refund on the whole stack, so they're sticking with their Win7 laptops for now. Just strange how such similar software and have such sporadic and random problems.
Well, I can't speak for the GP, but I don't keep any shortcuts on my desktop and pinned items are a bare minimum of common-use apps (Outlook, Firefox, PowerShell, etc). Having icons sprayed everywhere just feels extremely messy.
Admittedly, since getting a Mac at home, I have gotten into the habit of just hitting the windows key and searching for what I want (similar to Cmd-Space for Spotlight), which works better in Win8, but I still find the start screen incredibly annoying and inconsistent compared to the simplicity of a Start Menu that I've had for a decade.
Before that I had a Linux desktop and work machines running WindowMaker, which features a floating start menu :). My disdain for desktop icons and excessive pinning dates from that era.
... here's why.
Two weeks ago after I upgraded to 8.1 I found that I could not copy multi-GB files to a flash drive. The copy would start the copy process but very soon afterward it the transfer rate would get slower and slower and eventually hit 0 and stay there. Eventually, the OS would stop it with some stupid error. Rebooting in safe mode and trying again allows the copy to be completed but you'd never know it because the graphical display showing the copy STILL shows it stalling although the LED on the flash drive continues to indicate that it's being written to. Eventually, the graphical display will catch up with what is being copied and it appears that half a gigabyte was copied to the drive in a couple seconds.
How in the name of hell did 8.1 ever get passed QA with such an obvious bug? Has Windows gotten so huge and clunky and full of bloat that even the code for a simple file copy is riddled with bugs?
Suffice it to say, I don't use that machine very often except when I have to use Windows.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
That's funny. My AMD Athlon X2 2.2 GHz from 2005 runs Vista quite quickly. Here's what I do:
- Turn off indexing of drives. Stop and disable Windows Search and Superfetch services. Disable Superfetch and Prefetch in the registry.
- Turn off any other unneeded services. Remove unneeded Windows components.
- Turn off UAC.
- Turn off Aero.
- Disable 8.3 filename support.
- Disable system restore.
The machine is a dog until I do the above tweaks. Then it's useable and no HDD thrashing.
Right. Because "enterprise" hasn't stuck with XP and all the little warts and moles that it has brought with it for nearly 14 years now... They'll jump ship ASAP because Win7 just won't suit.... Yeah... You keep thinking that.
As short as your post is it's lacking everything but "This is teh year of Linuxxx!!!!!11111!!!!onehunderedeleven!!HERP!!!"
I'm sorry I'm not parsing this. Some companies are starting to migrate to 7, some are sticking with XP, but I don't know any companies that aren't actually doing Win8 development that have plans to upgrade to Win8. In fact, what I'm seeing is execs driving Apple on the desktop, in the briefcase and in the pocket. My company is over 30% Apple and growing, partly because the execs like the interface and partly due to the perception that Microsoft is currently rudderless and may not have an enterprise-suitable desktop again for years. With 8.1 they've decided to double down, and the next release it looks like they're doubling down again, as if we're somehow going to just get used to having a big blotchy GUI on KVM machines and stop complaining about it.
I know I know, you always buy Microsoft because of Office. That's not really true anymore either. Enterprise analytics tools, which are more important to execs than Excel, are available on ipad, and just starting to become available on Android, and aren't really supported on Microsoft tablets, except to the extent you can slog through your work using touch equivalents for the motions of a three button mouse, because there is no market for Metro support.
I just came back from a conference that used to be all Microsoft. This year all the presentations used Mac/Airport, and the great majority of attendees were also on macs or ipads. The whole week I saw one Surface.
Enterprise will leverage XP and 7 for as long as practical, but they're going to look for other solutions. But I think the linux-on-the-desktop crew will continue to be disappointed, unless Android counts. The point really is that Microsoft's choices are already affecting enterprise business, in ways that will slowly become apparent. Businesses are losing confidence in Microsoft being able to offer a viable business solution. There's no scrabbling to replace currently working solutions, but there is a push towards looking at non-Microsoft solutions going forward. It doesn't mean we're approaching "the year of Linux", that ship has sailed. What it means is that we're approaching the year of not-Microsoft, whatever that turns out to be.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
which is essential because the background image is a howto-use-win8-cheat-sheet.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Aren't windows 8 and 8.1 the same thing?
Right. Windows 8 is for people who haven't yet figured out the cabalistic hand gestures necessary to invoke Windows Marketplace and do the free upgrade. It's really the same OS.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Please check that your memory is not corrupt. You might have a real hardware problem. I've had a number of cases where I had bad ram, e.g. doing a memcheck at boot failed. It's amazing that the OS could run at all in these cases, but it did. Installing new applications and moving big files were problematic, but everything else worked . -Joe
Linux manages most of the time even though practically no vendor ships the drivers.
...8 performs better.
I have found this to be true on several PCs. Particularly video. In my experience (and it pains me to say this), it's just so silky smooth compared to 7. The way they tried to cobble together the ModernUI and desktop was a HUGE fail though. Ever try to copy and paste the username and password for a VPN connection? I haven't tried with 8.1 but in 8, it couldn't be done. You could paste the username, but when you tried to copy the password, the stupid thing would slide off the screen. Bring it up again and the username field would be blank. NERD RAGE!
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
Windows 8 is a lot faster. It does look better too and games preform better. It's hardly Vista.
The start menu think was fucking dumb and they really should released an "official" start menu that works, instead of having to pay $5 for a 3rd party one.
But other than the Start Menu, Windows 8 is actually just a faster Windows 7. I don't see what everyone is bitching about.
Not sure you read or understood my post. I want Microsoft to succeed as I'm a .NET developer. I am worried, however, that this misguided stubbornness with Metro is going to start eroding the stranglehold that Microsoft has enjoyed in the enterprise.
Whether you want to admit it or not, the Metro interface does not belong on a server.
Please check that your memory is not corrupt. You might have a real hardware problem. I've had a number of cases where I had bad ram, e.g. doing a memcheck at boot failed. It's amazing that the OS could run at all in these cases, but it did. Installing new applications and moving big files were problematic, but everything else worked .
I'll check the memory but I doubt that's the problem. The laptop is a year old and only rarely gets used. It's asleep most of the time.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
If you ignore the Metro interface, and the desktop, and the apps, Windows 7 and 8 are the same thing.
The apps only run on the Metro side, so I consider the "apps" and Metro one and the same. Easily ignorable. There are no "killer apps" that are only available through Microsoft's stupid store (except the 8.1 updater, which doesn't require a Microsoft Store account to download).
The Desktop is pretty close except the lack of a Start menu. Add Classic Shell and it's back to business as usual if you don't want to just pin all your programs to the Taskbar like I do. I have Classic Shell installed but don't really need it generally.
I've seen a ton of people complaining about the new Office interface, for example, because it's apparently all been 'flattened' to look as crap as Windows 8 does.
You can run older non-flattened and even non-ribbon interface versions of Microsoft Office on Windows 8 fine.
Windows 8.1 features an update that allows bypassing the metro screen (the bit everyone complains about). In simple terms, It's the "fixed" version of Windows 8.
You're leaving out the fact that the start screen is full screen. This has been discussed many, many times.
This isn't a case of people just not wanting change - it's a case of trying to force a square peg (tablet/phone UI) in a round hole (desktop environment).
Can't say I'm too bothered with the live tiles on a desktop machine
There are few enough live tiles and they can be deleted by hand. What you cannot delete by hand[*] is the Start Screen entries that are created by software that you install:
> dir "C:\Users\tftp\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu" /s /s
[...]
Total Files Listed:
52 File(s) 77,633 bytes
77 Dir(s) 395,226,988,544 bytes free
> dir "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu"
[...]
Total Files Listed:
485 File(s) 743,447 bytes
401 Dir(s) 395,092,660,224 bytes free
How long will it take you to scroll horizontally through 537 tiles that all look alike?
[*] You can delete the tiles from the start screen; however you have to do it one by one, and instead of using the DEL button you need to use the right-click and then select from menu at the bottom. It can take quite a while before you figure out what needs to be deleted and then delete it. Worse still, some of that may be still necessary, but there is no backup. It's insane for millions of people to be forced to do such things in this day.
Windows <8 has this problem taken care of by using hierarchical start menus. MSVC may drop 50 shortcuts into the menu when you install it, but you will never see them until you need one... and if you use it often you can copy it into the next tier of access (Pin to Start, Pin to toolbar, copy to desktop, assign a hot key.) The idea of the Start Screen comes from mobile world where one application has at most one launcher. This is not how it works on a PC - a large application may have tens of sub-components that are all independent applications, and you may need to run them from time to time.
If Windows 8 had the Aero interface of 7, then 8 would be better than 7, due to its kernel, which is even closer to microkernel than ever was.
What I can't get over is how Office 2013 was released with the ribbon tab names in all CAPS. It looks like crap.
You programmers have to get one clue. Write good code that runs on systems. Your system must not rely on a monopoly and should rely on standards. Your apps should run on a Mac, iPad, Android device, Linux and Windows. VB .NET means you are tied to ONE vendor and your sh!t can break with every OS, version of Office or monthly security update.
Who cares if Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Sun, HP, Lenovo, Compaq, DEC, Amiga, ect goes out of business if you write your app to a standard. The standard since the early 90's was a web app and still is.
Besides if MS throws a lot of horsepower behind Windows on Arm will any of your VB .NET sh!t run on that? Nope...
Have fun...
Your Average Joe
On the mac if i want to open a application...
Drag the applications folder to the right area of the dock. Congratulations, you have just made a stack.
Circumcision is child abuse.
8.1 Just isn't that bad. The only problem I've had with it so far is that some of the default drivers for my laptop were crappy. Admittedly, if I didn't know what was going on, this would have made 8 a complete flop.
The interface itself is OK once you get used to it. I find it somewhat nicer than 7 though not a huge improvement.
Play Command HQ online
Lenovo also sells Windows 7 PCs. I bought one for my parents, though they mostly use Linux Mint now. Ironically, I couldn't figure out how to get my dad's tide chart program running even under XP mode. I had to install Virtualbox.
Why is Windows like Star Trek people only seem to like alternate versions?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
This reminds me of simply navigating to C:\Program Files to launch stuff, I would do that in win9x sometimes. This is how I launched games mainly, navigate to D:\games\, pick a game folder and run the .exe (or .bat, or .com). Most games weren't "installed" anyway, either because they were DOS games or because Windows had been reinstalled but no need to reinstall the games. Later I had a quicklaunch with about ten games, the great stuff like CS 1.5, quake 3, AoE 2 etc.
You are disabling a good amount of quite useful features there.
I do not like 8.1. Probably they are trying to innovate but the result is a confusing jerky interface.
Stocks of various chair manufacturers are already registering a significant dip.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The "noise about nothing" is that Win8 is a solution in desperate search for a problem that turned into a problem in desperate search for a solution.
Win8 changed something that was useful, and now you tell us about "solutions" that allow us to emulate what we had in the first place, i.e. what was useful to us and what we wanted. We should not have to reach for solutions for problems we should not have.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Pretty much all the time?
My taskbar is filled with the programs that are open. My desktop is filled with the window of the program I'm currently using. Programs I plan to start are found by clicking that icon in the lower left corner of my screen, clicking on "programs" and then selecting the program I plan to launch.
Launching a program is a task that happens in a way lower frequency than switching between open applications or using a control in a program I am using. Hence that activity is not one I put on a highly frequented surface.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Can't mod him offtopic, after all we're talking things that are dead and buried...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nope. THAT would actually be funny.
This is just pathetic. It's like the retard laughing over the cripple.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nobody cares about what gets shown on sign in. That is the only time that Metro is not an annoyance.
We're referring to launching apps during a work session.
It's not clear why a Mac user is lecturing Windows users on the virtues of Windows 8/Metro. It's clear that you don't use Windows for anything significant.
I had progressive friends.
Then I noticed that they're just retards.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not on Windows 8.1 it doesn't. WinKey+S brings up a much less functional search.
You can quite easily write web apps in VB.NET and many people do. Even more write web apps in C#.NET. C# is an ECMA standard language and the web apps use standards such as HTML, CSS and Javascript. But don't let the facts get in the way of your 15 years out of date holy war.
After all, having blasted hours playing solitaire on XP daily, I had no trouble accepting Windows 8 interface. I hope Windows 9 will look more like mindsweeper (typo intended).
PS :
not sure if anyone is reading me but, I've found out I'm doing the same on a Windows 8.1 computer. The start screen is so much shit that to find and run Virtualbox I resorted to going to C:\Program Files. Done. Easier than navigating to "all apps" and finding it in the list.
"it works on AMD and Nvidia cards, it works on any OS since it's handled by the drivers"
Where do you get that crazy claim?
Mantle currently only works with AMD GCN (Graphics Core Next) cards, those are the 7000 and later series. And even then the older 7xxx's don't even get the full benefits at the moment (work in progress apparently). What makes you think Mantle will ever work with Nvidia (or Intel for that matter) GPU's when they don't even work with most of AMD's cards? The vague claims in the AMD presentation slides from two months ago?
And what's even more bold is your claim that it works "on any OS". Where do you get that? Who is working on OSX or Linux support, where's the news of an ETA, state of progress etc? And then there is the whole issue that game engines need to support this and currently we only have the Frostbite 3 engine that does that. And are games built on Frostbite 3 going to be interested in porting to non-Windows OS's ?
This whole Mantle is a long shot, designed to tide AMD over by reducing CPU-load on games until AMD can come up with a decent CPU architecture again. It is probably going to from "too niche" to "already obsolete" over the course of the next 3 years and become another Glide. It is not going to kill Windows.
Only OpenGL, with its proper OPENness from the get go, meaning support on all GPU's on all OS's since its inception has a chance of ever unseating DirectX.
https://dalgamotor.wordpress.com/ - Elektronik beyinlere ozgurluk asisi (Turkish)
Joe Stalin passes Hitler in popularity.
Hey, can I also ignore the API, and put Linux on the list too?
Rethinking email
I have to agree. Windows 8 introduced a lot of questionable UI changes, but I can live with them because Win8 is stable and responsive, and those are the properties that matter the most to me. After all these years I'm used to vendors making stupid changes to their UIs; it's just an unfortunate fact of life and complaining about it pretty obviously doesn't stop vendors from doing it. So I have decided: a UI doesn't have to be *good*, as long as it is *predictable*.
That said, if I had to *support users* on Windows 8, I'd hate it with a passion. Most users don't adapt readily to UI changes.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There is still no start menu though.
> You can run older non-flattened and even non-ribbon interface versions of Microsoft Office on Windows 8 fine.
He's right. As an experiment I ran Office 2000 on Win8, worked fine.
I disagree, though, that the Desktop is "pretty close except for the lack of a Start menu". It wasn't just that. Common things were in a different place, weren't grouped together properly and/or needed a memorized cabalistic gesture to make available. As many have said, Win8 lacks greatly in "conveyance". It's not apparent what are clickable objects and what are unclickable labels. These issues did not all go away with 8.1, nor does Classic Shell fix anything except the addition of a walking menu (which must be configured by the user).
But you can slog through all of this and maybe get work done, but why would you? We're told repeatedly that Windows 8 is better internally than 7, faster stronger better etc etc. And I'm sure that's true -- but the differences to the user, if any, are subtle, and aren't really enough motivation to deal with all the other issues. Especially for users without sysadmin experience.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You are disabling a good amount of quite useful features there.
Yeah it doesn't suck like 8 as you need to disable things to get to run like 7, with vista as long as you also disable features also?!
The thing is MS did no redesigns at all with instant search indexing or when the gpu is busy have the hourglass circle go round or fix the network connection speed and active directory replication issues.
Vista while tuned a little is still very defective and a terrible OS.
http://saveie6.com/
We're referring to launching apps during a work session.
And if you read my post you would see I don't use Start for that, just like I don't use LaunchPad on my Mac, it isn't that complicated.
It's not clear why a Mac user is lecturing Windows users on the virtues of Windows 8/Metro.
1. The concept of a "Mac user" and a "Windows user" is only used by small-minded zealots. You're trying desperately to label me because you don't like my point of view.
2. I didn't lecture anybody on the "virtues" of Windows 8/Metro.
You must be replying to the wrong post because nobody could have such a cognitive failure to have put that reply to this post.
FWIW I use both (well I also use Linux) so I don't see why that makes me a "Mac user" and not a "Windows user" but the point of my post is that I don't need to use Metro and you don't either, you choose to either through ignorance or some self-loathing which you feel gives you justification to complain. Why do you really use Metro?
It's clear that you don't use Windows for anything significant.
Your inability to refute the content of the post results in you needing to try to label me and then make stupid baseless assumptions about my usage.
> That said, if I had to *support users* on Windows 8, I'd hate it with a passion. Most users don't adapt readily to UI changes.
Which is why in it's current form Win8 is pretty much dead to the enterprise.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Ah, yes, the huge variety of laptop choices without Windows: 3 different rebadged Clevo models with terrible keyboards, and extremely pricy Apple laptops requiring you to pay for an OSX licence.
Speaking of that, what seems to be happening in the enterprise is that Apple is taking advantage of Microsoft's perceived lack of direction to gain a firmer foothold. Although in the past Apple presence in the enterprise was driven somewhat unsuccessfully from the bottom up, now it's being driven from the top down -- execs with iphones and ipads who want to carry those cool paper thin macbooks, leaving it to IT to find a way to make everything work. And we are, for the most part. This is not the year of Linux on the desktop, but it is the year of more Apple products in meeting rooms. iPads do really well at rendering those cool graphs that execs like so much, and the devices are cool and elegant looking.
And everything Microsoft does -- Win8.1, Surface 2, just seems to make things worse.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Problem is, that 8.1 is being marketed as a new OS. It's not a service pack. Technically it may be even less than a service pack in changes.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
I disagree, though, that the Desktop is "pretty close except for the lack of a Start menu". It wasn't just that. Common things were in a different place, weren't grouped together properly and/or needed a memorized cabalistic gesture to make available. As many have said, Win8 lacks greatly in "conveyance". It's not apparent what are clickable objects and what are unclickable labels. These issues did not all go away with 8.1, nor does Classic Shell fix anything except the addition of a walking menu (which must be configured by the user).
Classic Shell has pre-configured setups where you can simply select if you want a Luna (XP) type Start menu, a Vista-theme one, or a Windows 7 inspired menu. The user doesn't have to build their own Start menu item-for-item (in fact, that option is hidden in the "show all settings" mode). Classic Shell's installer also has the option of installing additional items that make changes to Windows Explorer and IE, so it's more than just a Start menu.
Is this better than Windows 7? No, obviously not.
But there's not reason to act like one must find those vendors still offering Windows 7 PCs, or that getting a Windows 8 machine is dooming a user to Microsoft-account enabled, Metro crApp usability nightmare. Having the PC boot to Desktop and just pinning all your most used programs for the taskbar really is a fine solution when you stop and think about what Joe Sixpack actually uses his computer for nowadays:
1. Web Browser -- wow, we just covered 80% of his uses right here - Facebook, Email, Netflix, Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Pogo, etc, etc, etc
2. Email Client -- for if he still uses his ISP account or has a work email address.
3. Office (maybe, for work)
That's it! We're looking at maybe a half-dozen programs to pin at the most (if we pin the Office apps individually). Even a laptop with a 1366x768 screen will give you enough Taskbar for that. We already have Windows Explorer down there for accessing files. We can still add a video player or a digital camera app, but we're pretty much done. Besides teaching he user how to shut off the computer from the Charms menu, what do we need a Start menu for?
It's not clear why a Mac user is lecturing Windows users on the virtues of Windows 8/Metro.
It's called trolling.
Not on Windows 8.1 it doesn't. WinKey+S brings up a much less functional search.
And Winkey+S was the key binding in OneNote to take a screen clipping, which was broken in 8.1. Seems Office crowd and Windows crowd didn't talk. Onenote is one of the underrated tools in Office.