Windows 7: Direct X 11.1 not available for Win7, only Win8

What I as well as many do indeed understand is that Windows 7 is extremely popular because it is designed to fit the specific needs of the desktop user and it does it extremely well. Not so with W8!

What you keep trying to sweep under the rug is that with W8, MS specifically targeted the mobile crowd in an attempt to cash in on Apple's market, and desktop users were left by the way-side. Touchscreens were not specifically designed for the desktop user. We were a mere afterthought, and were tossed a few table scraps by MS in hopes they could sell us a bill of goods.

Well no thank you. There's a whole lot of us out here who are not buying that bill of goods, and are not ready to trade in a great OS like Windows 7 for a one-size-fits all half hearted solution like W8.
If it fits your needs, great! But it doesn't fit ours.

There was a perfectly easy fix for that problem, but MS chose to ignore that.

+1 to that.

Nobody did the Desktop Experience like MS, but they were spooked by Ipad and wanted to capture a share of that market. At the same time the "Death of the PC" nonsense seemed to affect them to the extent that their greatest strength Desktop Experience was shoved into the back seat. How else to explain that they would deny the choice of a Start menu in Win8 when users overwhelmingly wanted it?

Now I fear they face the worst of both worlds: A ruin of the Desktop Experience after Windows 7, which is perfect in every way and shows no signs of age; and a touchscreen GUI which isn't done as well as Ipad.

There is a way out of this which is to simultaneously slip the Windows 7 Start Menu for Windows 8 into SP1 and the 8 installer so you get a choice, while slipping the Win8 Explorer improvements into Windows 7 SP2 so there are two strong Desktop Experiences going forward offering a transition that business will buy into - along with anyone else who wants to be productive on an intuitive Desktop Experience.

++1. Wish we could rep here.

And that last paragraph sounds damn reasonable to me

I agree with you 100%

Did you fill in the 'Why aren't you buying Windows 8' survey on the MS site a couple of weeks ago?
Errr, because I don't have a touch screen PC Mr Gates. It was clearly asking if I'd buy windows 8 if their were more Touch screen PC's out there..........TBH, after owning a WP7 (Missing simple things like copy & paste must have had Apple corp in fits of laughter) I was kind of reluctant to go anywhere near MS Metro style products......I'll stick to Windows 7 for the foreseeable future.

No I didn't, I didn't know about it till reading your post! I'd love to have answered that survey!
I think touchscreens for a desktop are as worthless as screendoors on a submarine.

First, how many people will be impressed with oily greasy smeared finger prints all over their nice big monitor? Yuck! You'd either spend half your time cleaning the screen or it would look filthy.

Second, who wants to spend hours with their hands up in the air finger painting on that dumb touch screen?
A mouse is designed for desktops, touchscreens are not, and W8 is designed and optimized for touchscreens.

Despite screw ups like Vista, I've always liked Microsoft, but W8 has brought all that into question.

It's going to be nothing special like dx10 and dx10.1 , most games didn't even use it and the visuals were pretty much the same expect these very small differnces with more particles. Like cyris 1 ppl found out how to get the same effect in dx9 with custom configs. Anyways only way I would move on is if it was something out of this world like dx11 was from dx9 but I highly doubt it since there's still a lot of games that don't fully use dx11 to it's potential. All in all it's just a gimmick like dx10.1 .

MS products have usually won me over many times in the past.
It's a shame you didn't see the survey, although it might have been aimed at UK / European customers
only.

I've tried but never owned Vista, we went from XP straight to Windows 7.
IMO If you want to see fail I suggest buying a WP7, After 2 years and a lot of updates WP7 made me turn my phone into a door stopper ... and at times a book end, oh and a phone to make and receive calls, not much use a smart phone really.

You don't need a Survey the Sales and decline in market shares will reflect that

When people start to discover how disabled they are with certain features they will complain squeel and even call M$ for help the bottom line here is DX11.1 is a gimmick and if your someone who has common sense you will realize that in order for a upgrade to be worth it has to have a super sick advantage over the other Os which this time around they went to Kindergarden instead of a Longsession

Anyway most people that buy into metro are serious tap screen users smartphones etc... we all know it is geared for them

Microsoft swaying from there bread and butter was a bad idea what they should of done was made TWO versions of W8 One for the serious Desktop user that doesn't look like there was a whole lot of color time
and the W8Metro who prefer the Metro interface and the tab tab touch and all those apps you have to use just to do certain things a Pc has right out of the box

If they were only smart enough to do that both parties would be satisfied but they would need different update platforms that would be the only problem M$ would face

I have been working with Tablets and smartphones etc for the last few weeks trying to get them to do Pc style functions none the less it is a B**ch my new move was to create a vitual machine windows 8 on a tablet after that try to link it to my printer it's going to take some apps and some digging to make those devices compatible and that is why M$ should think a little more about there idea on this whole new craze

With all due respect, the survey was asking why we in the UK hadn't purchased Windows 8. The most obvious reason being the extremely small amount of touch screen PC's available. MS knew this, that's why they asked the question in the survey. Your lucky in the USA, through no choice of our own we must be lagging behind most country's when it comes to the latest hardware.