More Than 3 Out of 4 Enthusiasts Reject Windows 8

To all those who delude themselves that 8 is not depressing sales, MS have now said so themselves.

I posted this on EF - worth repeating here:


Not that bothered about 8? You're not alone. To even the most disinterested observer, it's clear Microsoft has a lot work to do...

The change in tone.. was marked. Gone were the big messages about the Windows 8 Start screen and Windows 8-style apps... has the Start screen been over-emphasised?

I've changed my pitch...from starting with the Start screen to starting with the Windows desktop.

it's about doing their Windows 7 stuff and slowly get into 'OK I can do other things as well'. And suddenly it's 'well, I've got all these free apps I didn't know I had and I can play Angry Birds

I have been saying that since before it was released.

Moulster mused over whether there was a skew between early adopters and "people who are less techy". He also suggested that coming to Windows 8 without stigma does have positive results on touch-based devices.

Just when you think they are getting it ....oops, the use of the word stigma.That might explain why it took so long for the penny to drop. Or it might be they don't want to admit they were trying to force it. Either way - it is insulting - not a good idea to say it.

"I bought my mother, who's 76, a surface and - obviously while I helped her somewhat - she loves it and just gets on with it. She does her email, online banking, she does everything. What she doesn't use is the desktop. She doesn't really know it's there - she's got fairly simple needs.

Ian, she can do all that on cheap android thing, probably without any help. So what is your USP?


Microsoft: emphasis on Start Screen shackled Windows 8 | News | TechRadar

Windows Product Manager Ian Moulster is exhibiting absolute arrogance, and still just doesn't get it. He's still making stupid excuses for W8's flop.
To him, it's not M$'s fault at all, it's the fault of those ignorant consumers who just don't know enough to do what M$ wants them to do.
I've got news for Moulster, he's badly mistaken if he thinks insulting the intelligence of M$'s consumers is the way to coerce them into buying the garbage he's pushing.

Dallas 7 said:

Windows Product Manager Ian Moulster is exhibiting absolute arrogance, and still just doesn't get it. He's still making stupid excuses for W8's flop.
To him, it's not M$'s fault at all, it's the fault of those ignorant consumers who just don't know enough to do what M$ wants them to do.
I've got news for Moulster, he's badly mistaken if he thinks insulting the intelligence of M$'s consumers is the way to coerce them into buying the garbage he's pushing.

The really tragic and silly thing about the Windows 8 "metro" debacle is that with only TWO small changes that would have been ZERO problem to implement would have been to allow a default boot to desktop at every start up, and return the start menu. Problem solved.

Steve Ballmer's head should roll for this.

What I can't understand is why Paul Allen, Bill Gates, the BoD and the shareholders haven't pushed to correct this very simple problem. If you skip Metro, Windows 8 is even better than Windows 7 when it comes to functionality and speed.

Obviously BestBuy is not the only store where people are standing in the return line with their W8 computers:
I just received a flyer in the mail from the Micro Center store here in Dallas today advertising all their sales and bargains.

Included in the flyer were 12 "Refurbished" laptops.
Of those 12, 10 were W8 laptops! One needs to think only for a moment to realize W8 hasn't been out long enough to need refurbishing. The only logical reason is they bought it, hated it, and traded in for a W7 unit.
Those 10 were probably traded in for a loss to the consumer, how many more were bought, hated, but never returned, maybe pushed off on a teenage family member or they're just living with it unhappily?

Windows Product Mgr Ian Moulster probably considers those people to be just another example of what he described as "less techy" consumers who are just not smart enough to do what M$ wants them to do.

legacy7955 said:

The really tragic and silly thing about the Windows 8 "metro" debacle is that with only TWO small changes that would have been ZERO problem to implement would have been to allow a default boot to desktop at every start up, and return the start menu. Problem solved.

Not quite. Once you reinstate the Start Menu with a program like Windows 7 Start Menu for Windows 8 that grafts on the exact same Win7 Start Menu, the crApps are still set at default until you uninstall all of them to get back to a decent Reader, PhotoViewer, WMP, etc. Even then it takes some tinkering in Default Programs.

I resent having to tweak my Win8 installs to get the perfect Desktop experience which Win7 provides out of box, not when Win7 doesn't show the slightest sign of age and should be on all of those PC's sitting in the stores going unsold, or returned because Users feel a cruel trick was played putting a touchscreen OS on a new PC without touch they bought.

legacy7955 said:

What I can't understand is why Paul Allen, Bill Gates, the BoD and the shareholders haven't pushed to correct this very simple problem. If you skip Metro, Windows 8 is even better than Windows 7 when it comes to functionality and speed.

Overreaction to Ipad, resulting in a knock off that ruins MS supremacy in Desktop Experience (what all productive people rely upon) and ironically doesn't really even compete with what they hoped to imitate in spite of interesting "live tiles."

Once you buy the self-fulfilling prophecy that desktop is dead, the model becomes going mobile and monetizing apps - something that doesn't translate to MS strength on the desktop, but does ruin it.

You're not far off about bully-boy "take it or leave it" attitudes which were in high gear trying to pressure business to go Win8 when forced to leave XPired soon. Dire warnings were made about BIOS infections (we never see here) if they don't go with Win8 Secure Boot. Business answered with apparent 100% migration to Win7, vindicating us here. and throwing a wrench into the gears to bury Win7 quickly.

There is no successor yet to Win7. Carry on here at it's home.

I have not found any WIn8 PC that doesn't have WIn7 drivers for either 32- or 64- bit in the installer or delivered quickly via Windows Updates. One or two missing can be found quickly via a web search.

This is not an issue, so when someone mentions it I think they are visiting from the XP era and want to start chipping the ice away from them.

I've not seen a device for which a Win7 driver cannot be found since beta, in tens of thousands of installs. I asked my friends at Summit who are the top posters at MS Forums and they can't remember any either.