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Windows 9 To Win Over Windows 7 Users, Disables Start Screen For Desktop
DroidJason1 writes One of Microsoft's main goals with Windows 9, the next major version of Windows, is to win over Windows 7 hold outs. The operating system will look and work differently based on hardware type. Microsoft is looking to showcase the desktop for desktop and laptop users, while two-in-one devices like the Surface Pro or Lenovo Yoga will support switching between the Metro interface and the classic desktop interface. The new desktop will allow Modern UI apps to run in windowed mode, and have Modern UI apps pinned to the Start Menu instead of a Start Screen. There will also be a mini-start menu. Microsoft is looking to undo the usability mistakes it made with Windows 8 for those who are not on a touch device. WIndows 9 is expected around spring of 2015.
Isn't that supposed to be windows 8.2?
Can they also put a switch in this to make Office usable? I can't stand that fucking ribbon interface that makes everything I used to do the most often 5 times more difficult.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That it goes x64 only, much like they said a year and change ago.
Om, nomnomnom...
So this means my virtualized headless server won't have a touch screen interface? Glad someone used some common sense.
I'm not buying a new OS and relearning it unless there are amazing benefits. So far there are not amazing benefits.
Looks like MS is looking to continue the tradition of good odd-numbered Windows versions to make up for the bad even-numbered versions.
I finally got my Windows 7 system working reliably. I'm not budging until I have to.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Why is releasing a re-labelled version of Windows 7 going to take until spring of 2015? Are they making a crew of interns re-type the source?
It's too late. Classic shell is better than the start menu ever was or ever will be.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I suppose this is the next Tick in Microsoft's equivalent of Intel's Tick Tock development model. In Microsoft's case, they get redesign hubris with every other version, then spend the following version back-tracking and undoing all the things they did wrong.
Much like Windows 7 pretty much was a fix-up of Vista, Windows 9 appears to be a "corrected" Windows 8.
So:
Windows 9 is to Windows 7, what Windows 7 is to Windows XP.
Why?
Because Windows 9 is to Windows 8 what Windows 7 is to Windows Vista (which is Windows ME to Windows XP).
Head == asplode.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Windows 8.X / 8.1X needs a new name to get rid of the bad PR and make the changes stand out more.
You believed something Microsoft said? Sucker. MSFT's promises are about as credible as "The check is in the mail" and "I'll pull out"
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I know, ridiculous, right?
Microsoft could have avoided all this mess by simply listening to people who were beta testing and using 8 and complaining about the horrible start screen. I'm sure they got PILES of feedback, but they were so stubborn they even went out of their way to keep people from bringing back the traditional start menu.
What happened to listening to your customers? To providing options? Historically MS has always been all about that, and *Apple* has been the "our way, or the highway" company. It was really strange to see things reversed for Windows 8.
Also, MS really should break free of their "we are the only OS that exists" philosophy. Other operating systems support a wide variety of filesystems and networking protocols out of the box. Windows still only supports its own and assumes nothing else exists. It's time to knock that shit off, Microsoft.
What about some of the huge downgrades in functionality that came with 8?
Audio controls being a big one.
Pardon?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
While it is nice to see Microsoft undo a horrific mistake for once, lets not be too quick to forgive and forget. (And don't even start until the gold release of Windows 9 is sitting on user's desktops)
The fact that Microsoft created this monster in the first place should tell you something about the remaining competence level there. You should be worried about their long-term stability. What is to keep them from pulling a similar stunt on you in Windows 10?
Instead of saying "One of Microsoft's main goals with Windows 9, the next major version of Windows, is to win over Windows 7 hold outs." wouldn't it be more factual to say the main goal is to "overcome the design failures that prevented widespread adoption of Windows 8."
As much as they love to pat themselves on the back for having such a "revolutionary" design, there is no better evidence that it Win 8 was a groupthink circlejerk than how no one who had the choice would use it.
iOS and Android on the desktop? / big screen?
Android can do Multi-Window. Ios needs an hack to do that.
everyone and their grandmothers has windows 7 and won't be switching till whenever support ends for it (and everyone wonders why they didn't stop years before).
.
Why in the world would I want to give Microsoft more money just to stay on the Microsoft Upgrade Treadmill©?
I wonder what reason they'll use to justify pulling it back out of Windows 10?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
What about some of the huge downgrades in functionality that came with 8?
Audio controls being a big one.
Pardon?
You need to speak up, his audio controls are messed up.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Install Linux
It's long been a common complaint that Microsoft has too many SKUs for each version of Windows, and I agree. Vista went way too far on that, and if we ignore "RT", Win 8 was more a reasonable Home/Pro/Enterprise - and I don't know if they had upgrade/oem/retail sub-varieties. It's surely the wrong approach to divide up the functionality by SKU here. Instead, why can't Windows look at the hardware and make educated guesses as to the default behaviors, and then let users customize? Ballmer liked to criticize Google for developing multiple operating systems instead of a single strategic platform, but Microsoft is famous for this crap.
they're probably going to bring Clippy back or something like that
HP and Dell can give up any hope of a nice Santa Rally in sales this holiday season - for the third year in a row. A shame they took so long to get invested in Android. Samsung and LG are going to clean up this year.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Last time they listened, we got clippy. An earlier version of clippy was in the user tests, and users loved it: it was useful, funny, and typically anticipated what they needed help for. They were so happy, Microsoft turned it up.
I didn't mind the start screen as much as everybody else. I didn't like it, but I could work with it. The problem I had with 8 is that, when I tried to customize my desktop to fit my uses and upgrade everything, something would inevitably break along the way. I could be a day, a week, even a month invested in the operating system, but then something would break. But in a way that would make it impossible for my system to actually start. I want to like the new things, Microsoft, but I can't just leave it be and hope it works for the best.
I know it might sound weird, but I like where things are at in Windows 8.1. Boots into desktop after login, transition to start screen is much less jaring when using the same background, configure the immediate left of the start screen with all your most used apps. It's very similar to the osx launchpad.
If they remove it in win9, I may just configure it back the way it was in 8.1.
"I herd you like Windows, so we decided to put MORE windows in your Windows!" But seriously now, what those articles tell me is that Windows 9 will behave like Windows 7 does on my current HW...soooo why the hell would *I* want to upgrade?
They release new versions of windows too often, and charge too much for the upgrades. Also, far too many things stop working once one upgrades.
I intend to hang on to 7 until the end of extended support, and possibly after that, because I have no incentive to upgrade. Their willingness to give me back the interface they shouldn't have taken away in the first place is not an incentive to upgrade, it is merely one less disincentive.
What we wanted: Device-specific interface, with a shared software architecture for compatibility purposes. What they gave us: Device-specific architecture with a phone's interface. Apple may be able to get away with creating demand for whatever they put out (when you're selling more of a culture than a product, you can do that), but MS isn't there, and never will be.
The sound volume icon is shit anyway both in 7 and 8.1. Slow to come up when you're suffering some over loud thing bursting on the crap speakers on someone else's computer, icon too small and faint and hidden in the tray, doesn't support changing the volume by simply hovering the mouse and using the scrollwheel.
When I had my own Windows I would use Autohotkey to change volume ; when I use someone's Windows 6.x (any flavor) I hit win+r and type "sndvol".
Insert Spinal Tap joke here:
Wow, so one of their major goals is to release something people actually want to upgrade to.
Way to set your sights low, Microsoft.
Perhaps you should admit that Metro was nothing other than your executives suffering from collective lust explosion over Apple taking 30% off the top of every app sale and hoping that MS could force Windows users into the same situation.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
...and purchased a Mac Pro. My WIN2K machine started showing its age. HP stopped making ink cartridges for my printer. Upgrading required a completely new system as none my peripherals will work on Vista and higher. We started using WIN7 at work from XP and I just hated it. Since I had to buy a completely new system, a Mac Pro was only a little more money. And the migration to learning a new OS was easier than I anticipated. I have no regrets, especially seeing the stupid mistakes MS has made in WIN8.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
One I wish I could do with the programs screen is to put the tiles down to text only if I want to. I have too many programs, and it is confusing to sort through colorful boxes instead of a nice alphabetical text list. The search feature is way stronger in Windows 8 than Windows 7, and I appreciate that very much. Windows 8 just had so many things about it that were ALMOST really good. Then some odd UI decision made it annoying instead of great.
I guess I could like it but would prefer it gray, unanimated and with a regular old boxy scrollbar.
You could always install and log onto gnome-flashback (gnome-fallback on pre 14.04) if you want a conventional desktop. Yeah, didn't like Unity either.
Interns were the ones who wrote the original Metro apps. I find it very difficult to imageine that professional developers wrote them. There were enough usability problems with them, plus the timeline comparisons with the release candidates, that are strong evidence that these were hastly cobbled together in a "summer of on the job code training" going on.
Too little.... WAAAAAAY too late....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I was actually at the first ever meeting of the IT department for my company from all over the country and about half of them did not understand why I do not like Windows 8...confirming the contempt I have developed for them based on the interactions I have had with them.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Ubuntu already saw the light and is pushing even harder towards convergence.
With Microsoft announcing their going to have different UIs for different form factors, and Apple going as far as having completely different OSes under thei different UIs on different form factors, the only true convergence story left standing is Ubuntu. One Unity, one experience, on all different form factors.
Let the market decide.
God, I should hope so.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Is Windows relevant to anything anymore?
There were enough usability problems with them
Agreed, but you're going to have usability problems when the use of a poor UI continues to be dictated from above despite the opinions of the people that actually have to use it.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
If you're a true Windows 7 "hold out" then you won't be moving to a new operating system until that goes out of extended support in January 2020.
Working on one new update every two years, once extended support ends then it'll probably be Windows 11 that Microsoft will want those hold outs to move to, certainly not Windows 9.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
WHY are you powering down a desktop, never mind cutting its power off?? I mean, I can understand rebooting (which it does pretty damn fast - well under a minute to get back to the login screen on my system, and a good chunk of that is BIOS status displays - so I'm skeptical of your "four minutes" complaint) when needed, but powering down even without disconnecting power is an edge case scenario these days (use Suspend, or Hibernate if you need to) and cutting the power cord is an extremely rare need (also, you can hibernate if needed).
Even in the case that this is something you legitimately need to do, your complaint is stupid. Just wait until the power light on the case goes out (and the fans spin down, which is easy to *hear* even if you aren't looking at the case) before cutting the power!
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I remember when all you had to do was replace a registry key for "shell" from explorer.exe to whatever you wanted and that was all it took to run any other front end from boot (progman.exe anyone?)
Awh those were the days
The answer to all your problems
My company has already started to ditch Microsoft over the gaff that was Vista 2.0 (Win8x). Starting six months ago as peoples machine came up on replacement schedule we started moving everyone to Ubuntu and Libre Office. (Not really all that thrilled with Ubuntu myself...) But what we are seeing here is that even companies are now getting tired of Microsoft flops every other version. With most of our software and applications being web based these days, as long as you have a web browser that works with java script you are pretty much golden. Even in the server environment now we are running nearly 50% Solaris or Linux and 50% Windows Servers, though we are replacing Windows with Unix or Linux as we can.
Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000 never had a home edition. Among Windows operating systems with a home edition, it went 95 bad, 98 good, Me bad, XP good, Vista bad until SP1 "Mojave", 7 good, 8 bad without Classic Shell.
I don't know what the state of the art emulator of the Sega Genesis 16-bit Video Entertainment System is, but you can run 16-bit Super NES software in Higan (formerly bsnes) and 16-bit DOS games in DOSBox. And you can probably run a bunch of 16-bit software in MESS. These emulators are available on multiple platforms, including Windows 8.1.
What other disadvantages do you ascribe to it? It doesn't take up meaningfully more space than the menu bar would (it takes significantly *less* space than a menu bar plus a single toolbar), it is still navigable with a keyboard, it doesn't override existing keyboard shortcuts for specific actions (from Ctrl+S to Ctrl+Shift+=), it is still hierarchically organized and also still supports expanding (sub)menus for high option density where needed, it scales to multiple resolutions and window sizes better than menus do, it makes it easy to see what the effect of an action will be before you click, and there's still a customizable toolbar for commands you want to hit with the mouse in one click from anywhere.
These all seem like wins vs. the menu bar system...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I know this is flame-bait, but I'd love to get a headless / CLI-only version of Windows 9 for a discounted price. My company has a very small IT department and the whole company is Windows-based. We literally don't have the resources to learn & maintain Linux, especially since most of our vendors' hardware is also based on various flavors of Windows. Easily 30-40% of our Windows licenses are for headless devices controlling various bits of machinery, and it pains me to pay $100+ on a $500 computer for something we'll never hook a monitor to after the first day.
Bringing back an actual Start menu is an important part of what needs to be fixed, but it's not the only thing. Windows 8, with its solid color design, looks flat and ugly compared to Windows 7 with Aero. Even if they plan to stick with the more spartan look, they should at least bring back frame translucency. (There is an add-on for Windows 8 that can do this, but it's still in beta and requires installation by hacking AppInit_DLL.) And the centered window titles are even more annoying. From Windows 95 onward, the title has always been left-justified. That's where my eyes are used to looking for it, and have been for nearly 20 years. Windows 8 moved it to the center because some graphics designer thought it looks cool, but this completely breaks my eye-tracking, wasting a few seconds here and there while I go hunting for the title that's not where my muscle memory says it should be. I don't care if they expose this in the UI, but there should at least be a registry key to fix that.
Isn't that supposed to be windows 8.2?
Windows 8.1 update (as opposed to Windows 8.1) is supposed to be Windows 8.2.
I just did that. You do have to click the icon first. Is that a bad thing? I hate it unfocused elements decide to unexpectedly handle inputs...
It comes up faster than I can click and then maneuver my mouse up to the slider.
It isn't faint (it's 100% opaque white) or any smaller than any other tray icon. Tray icons have been roughly the same size since the tray was introduced in Windows 95. Icons are auto-hidden in Vista and above if you're not using them, but you can choose to pin icons so they always show; you just click the tray arrow button, then click the very prominent "Customize" button.
I hope this episode would convince the Gnome folks and Canonical to revert this whole "convergence" thingy (I think that's Shuttleworth's word). Touch is nice for portable screens but not for large, fixed screens. Maybe the next generation will grow up with their hands glued to a video display even for tasks like driving and typing book reports, but until that time let the mouse and touch pad die a natural death.
MS will probably do something stupid... windows 11 though will be decent.
Don't touch 12 though... 13 will ironically be great though.
And so on... why are they so stupid! At the very least, after coming out with a popular OS try to learn from that and build on that success.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Perhaps it's a $1,000 PC with a $9,000 specialized peripheral that has a driver for the included Windows OS but no driver for X11/Linux. These multi-thousand-dollar peripherals are commonly trotted out as reasons that businesses stay on outdated Windows. Heck, some CNC mills probably still run DOS (happy birthday FreeDOS!).
> ... is to win over Windows 7 hold outs.
What about us Windows XP hold outs you insensitive clod ?!
Well, your machine probably doesn't have the guts to run Win9, so you're pretty much stuck with XP.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I don't see MS doing this. They are still working on the business model when they were on the steep end of the curve, when the current version really did suck and the new version really was substantially better, or supported things (like usb) that you really needed. We're up on the flat end of the curve now, where an OS typically has small incremental changes from one version to the next, as it asymptotically approaches some ideal state. When you're here, the business model of huge bags of cash every couple of years when you release some new version that everyone is desperate for, just doesn't fit anymore.
You could see that they tried. Windows 8 was Radically Different, as you'd expect a couple decades ago when Radical Differences from one version to the next were expected and wanted. But we don't want that anymore. And Microsoft, even if they realize that, don't know how to adapt.
I think your solution above (Windows on a subscription system for updates) is practical, but MS would then have to adapt to a steady stream, rather than periodic truckloads of cash, and they're just not built to work like that.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Most PowerPoint presentations look like the 1998 internet when BLINK tags roamed the earth and ten fonts a page wasn't seen as excessive so why not have it as some sort of web page creation program instead of an archaic fucking magic lantern show? Currently it's not much different from screen scraping or a rewrite to make a presentation readable via a web browser.
All the presentations are made from devices that have web browsers already on them so why not something that looks good in a web browser?
There are no inventions in operating system UIs since the release of XP, right now we are suffering one big experiment that seems to be led by a horde of drunken chickens...
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Discussed this with friends since 8 came out. Detect a touch screen, *offer* (not force) the crappy METRO interface. Don't detect a touch screen, classic shell.
METRO makes sense on a tablet or a phone, but not on a desktop.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
I wish they added a viable option to disable ClearType and Font Smoothing properly.
Hey, I just got here !
if they think that they can entice people using win XP to jump, fine. win 7, I literally just got here. bought my copy four weeks ago, and it works fine, I must admit. In this context, "fine" means " as well as win XP".
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
So the selling point is that it will look like windows 7. Why should I pay for it then? Microsoft clearly wants windows to be a subscription. Why else knock out a new version so often and put little effort into fixing what you already have. I'm not into paying an obscene amount for a broken OS where there's osx and Linux which both are so much cheaper and perform better.
Yes, it is a bad thing that the scroll wheel affects things which are not under the mouse pointer. If I move the mouse pointer to a window or widget and mouse scroll it is because I expect that action to affect where I moved the mouse pointer to. Otherwise, why would I have moved my hand to the mouse?
Microsoft made it quite clear that much of the "issue" is that there are now simply too many options in Office. They tried to make a menu structure for 2007 and would have had to make several menus multiple submenus deep. They couldn't design a classic menu interface that they felt was workable for the features they added.
Dude, you sound like me! Don't worry, you aren't the only one to think this way, there are at least two of us.
Dear Microsoft, Please sell a Family Pack similar to Windows 7.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
My Lenovo Y580 worked really well with Windows 7 and almost as well with 8. 8.1 totally stuffed the WiFi, and it only works properly when using the Intel Windows 7 driver. If this hadn't worked, I would have reverted to Windows 7. I now remember why my last PC was a Mac....
...they'd better offer an in-place upgrade from Windows 7. Nobody (well, almost nobody) is going to back everything up, do a fresh OS install that blows away the old one, and then reinstall everything and reconfigure everything. It just takes too damn long. I'm thinking about moving my Dad from his XP machine to a Chromebook for exactly this reason - I'd upgrade him to Win8, except you can't do that.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Go get a copy of Windows 3.1 on eBay and run it in your favorite VM. Google finds guides to install Windows 3.1 in DOSBox and in VirtualBox.
Seriously, I don't think I ever received anything from them that couldn't be sent in RTF format, but that's another story.
99% of the stuff that gets send as word processor files could be plain text.
MS ought to have realized by now that they need to just throw away any even-numbered releases. The only numbered releases that have not been failures due to function or usability have all been odd-numbered (assuming you forget about all versions before Windows 3.1). And just skipping the even numbers won't work because it's the ideas in the even releases that are failures.
Though perhaps it might be that MS needs the every-other-version beatings to actually produce decent versions?
--- Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. ---
I've always wondered why the Explorer interface as a whole has always presented itself as largely immutable (excluding HTA folder templates). Why not take a lesson from elsewhere in the industry (winamp?) and make it skinnable? Add plugin support. If you like the default MS skin, use that. Otherwise.. sign into whatever flavor of app market and download an alternative. This would include alternatives to the much hyped and boring Aero.
I think we're in violent agreement. What I was trying to insinuate is that a given XP instance is likely running on an older machine, and running just fine, I might add, where the only real upgrade path is to buy new hardware. But if XP still does whatever the user needs, why bother?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
>> Can they also put a switch in this to make Office usable?
Just install Libreoffice.... Or Linux with LO.
aaaaaaa
Once when I tried to switch to Linux, my Microtek 4850 flatbed scanner wouldn't work. I checked SANE's list and it was marked as unsupported. I had to replace it with an HP.
If 8 was designed for monkeys, 9 is just for audience.
Another thing that has kept some of us from upgrading is the pricing of Media Center in Windows 8. Not only is it optional at extra cost - the $10 add-on would be tolerable - but you can only add it to Windows 8 Pro, if you have the standard (home) edition you have to upgrade with a $100 Pro Pack. The net result is that you can count the number of HTPC users who are running Windows 8 with the fingers of no hands, and the manufacturers of TV tuner cards are unhappy because Microsoft has pretty much destroyed their business.
Office 2013 (which we just switched to at work, over my objections after being one of our office's "beta" testers) is even worse than 2010, which was worse than 2007. In 2007, they introduced the non-conforming title bar, so you could barely tell by looking whether an Office app had the focus. (It changed to slightly darker, but only slightly. I had to look at my other apps and by process of elimination figure out whether Office had focus.) In 2013, the title bar changes *not at all* when Office receives/ loses focus. It's always white (or always light gray or a slightly darker gray). I finally found a work-around, using a high-contrast "theme" in Windows forces the title bar to change color depending on focus. Of course everything else looks rather ugly, but I'm gradually tweaking what I can. And Office 2013 has the ugliest icons and buttons I've ever seen. Looks like it was designed for a VGA screen, or maybe CGA... If you don't believe me, google "microsoft office 2013 ugly".
"The new desktop will allow Modern UI apps to run in windowed mode". Like... Windows 1.0, 2.0 3.0 will allow MS-DOS programs to run in windowed mode? Look, I get (a bit) that windows apps on a touchscreen device are hard to implement. Even though they break a proper GUI (I use android and I hate the fact that there are no windowed apps, especialy since tablets are getting the resolution to support it) I can accept that it is just difficult. But what in the hell are you thinking of implementing a non-windowed environment on a desktop. That's just... going backwards in time 20 years.
Yeah I'd like to know what this is about too. I don't see anything less functional about the Win8 sound interface compared to previous versions.
It's funny though, I used to *hate* pulseaudio on 'nix. It still gives me grey hairs sometimes with certain software (e.g. Minecraft which won't remap output to an alternate device) but the ability to send particular applications to a specific output/input is awesome. Newer windows at least add the stream/app specific volume control, but I *really* wish that windows had the ability to send output from specific streams to specific devices.
>, I used to *hate* pulseaudio on 'nix.
Amen brother.
Pulseaudio had the nice promise of a way to connect sources sinks and intermediate audio processors, but it turned out to be a nightmare that rarely worked.
An application should have a single sensible audio API under linux rather than having to know about pulseaudio or any other audio system in the OS.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Well, to be honest, it has gotten (quite a lot) better. Other than the minecraft/Java issue, problems with Pulse are somewhat more rare these days. I think this is mostly due to Pulse being rammed through by Ubuntu etc and thus pulse-compatible applications becoming more the norm.
There's a one-bitten-twice-shy issue though.
Pulse audio was crap for long enough that there's a generation of users who steer clear.
If systemd goes bad, it will do the same thing for monolithic boot/device managers.
Time will tell.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Who needs time travel? I really do not get why you decided to get sarcastic and pretend to be stupid in reply to a post about documented versus undocumented file formats.
So what would I have them do? It would be nice if they would properly document their file formats (like those SEGD files from 1972), but since they won't for business reasons we have to work around it or avoid outputting in those formats.
What we currently have documented from them is a mostly useless XML wrapper around various undocumented formats. Since their internal processes are unable to retain compatibility between versions very well that means users have to do format shifting and partial rewrites to do things with old files on new versions of the software. A workaround is not to bother and keep legacy systems around to output to other file formats (eg. PDF) that can be used in more recent computer system environments.
There is nothing else to say. The best thing MS can do is just give us Windows 7 in a box labelled Windows 9. Most of us will be so happy to not have that fucking Charms Bars and Metro Screen interrupt us every 5 minutes for no apparent reason whatsoever that we would not even notice. Honestly, hand on heart, I would prefer Windows 95 to Windows 8.
Microsoft doesn't know the meaning of the term "focus group testing". Although I guess it is sort of pointless if you already know the masses are going to eat whatever shit you dish out.
I'm betting they did a lot of focus testing, but ignored the result of them at a very high level. There was too much momentum in the wrong direction (the idea that touch/metro should supplant the "legacy" desktop in their main OS) to change it by the time consumers got in front of it.
In the end, the market forced them to acknowledge what the focus groups were probably telling them all along.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The subject says it all. So far 7 does all I need I dont need to use touch screens on large displays and I do not trust the cloud, now would I ever store my, or a customers data in the cloud. The govt claims they have access to any of your data not physically in your possession so they could conceiveably track your on line transactions. Be it purchases, sales, savings, or investments. Course they could monitor any router you might go through as well.
make that three...
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!