More Than 3 Out of 4 Enthusiasts Reject Windows 8

[Dallas 7]

.........Right now, I am happy that Windows 8 is suffering from lagging sales and acceptance because market refusal is the most effective way to answer MS's attitude.

I am glad that some people, if not many, realize bullshit when they're given it and responding to MS's attitude in kind. I am also dismayed that MS does not realize their folly and continues to press forward on Metro, while also taking no heed of an end-user's needs as implied by the recent comments from Adam Orth regarding always-on DRM. If MS keeps going down the road they're currently walking, they'll just become irrelevant in several years' time when effective successors/replacements for Windows 7/XP and Xbox inevitably come around; already the PS4 looks to be becoming the de facto replacement to the next Xbox.

I agree wholeheartedly with you King Arthur. Especially about "responding to MS's attitude in kind."

 

[Roders]

Hi All,
First post on the Forum.
First and foremost, the majority of users do not want/need another OS.
It is not just the enthusiasts either.
MS know this as well as we do.
Re the win 8 failure I can only add my own views.
A short while ago we bought a new laptop with win 8 preinstalled on it.
We tried to use it as best we could for a month but found it was increadibly clumsy to use.
We eventuall took the decision to have Win 7 installed instead.
We took it back to the store, part of a huge national chain, to have this done but were told it
would take five to seven working days to have this done as there was such a cue of others ahead
of us all having the self same thing done. And yes, I could actually see this being done and so know it to be true and not just some excuse to account for the delay.
I think this leaves little or nothing more to say about the matter except that while we find 7 much better than 8 there are still some features of XP that are better than both for what we need/prefere.
Going by the rule that alternate versions are rubbish we can only hope 9 becomes usable again even though I can not see anybody needing yet another OS.
Things seem to have come to the end of the developement/improvement road and MS can not rely on kidding people that they need something new again. They are allready well along the process of simply making changes because they can not make genuine and worthwhile improvements to their OS's.
What they should have looked seriously at are the "Backup and Restore" feature and the ever woeful "Paint". I could go on and on but I have a feeling that I am preaching to the converted so I will not.
Rgds.
Roders

 

[Dallas 7]

Hey Roders welcome to the forum!
Yeah W8 had a few improvements under the hood that would've been nice additions to W7, but instead they stuck their collective heads in a dark place and ruined what could've been a good thing.

 

[x BlueRobot]

Welcome to the forums Roders, if there is going to be a Windows 9 then it is most likely to be like Windows 8, Windows Blue has completely removed the concept of the desktop from what I have heard.

 

[Roders]

Welcome to the forums Roders, if there is going to be a Windows 9 then it is most likely to be like Windows 8, Windows Blue has completely removed the concept of the desktop from what I have heard.

Hi BR,
Thanks for the news.
That is something else I will not be purchasing from them then.
Can someone explain why MS do not simply supply what the consumer wants and needs?
Rgds
Roders

 

[King Arthur]

Mainly because Metro/WinRT, if successfully forced down consumers' throats, serves to greatly profit and enpower MS at the expense of the consumers.

I do apologize if my previous post was a bit much and was TL;DR, but the basic gist of everything MS is doing recently is to purely expand upon their own profits while effectively sacrificing the consumers; and they can afford to do this because of the overwhelming market share that Windows/Office currently holds, and Xbox as well to a lesser extent.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...Can someone explain why MS do not simply supply what the consumer wants and needs?
Rgds
Roders

Arrogance.

 

[Dallas 7]

...Can someone explain why MS do not simply supply what the consumer wants and needs?
Rgds
Roders

Arrogance.

Exactly. They're so big, they believe they can now forcefeed a one size fits all tablet/phone OS to a desktop market.
If the market tell them to get lost, maybe they'll get a clue.

 

[x BlueRobot]

• No Windows desktop mode!? No! | ZDNet
• Five reasons why Windows 8 has failed

 

[Iforgot]

<post not quoted for space conservation>

I can understand the reasons behind why MS would want to kill Desktop so badly on Windows and insist on forcing always-on DRM on their XBox. I don't agree with nor accept them though.
................................................................................................
If MS keeps going down the road they're currently walking, they'll just become irrelevant in several years' time when effective successors/replacements for Windows 7/XP and Xbox inevitably come around; already the PS4 looks to be becoming the de facto replacement to the next Xbox.

To a certain degree I do agree with this... but
How much of the win32 API are they changing?

It's kernel version havn't changed much since Vista ie NT-6
Conpiler was changed fot XP to DotNet
XP SP3, Vista SP2, Win7 got updated so programs cannot directly access hardware.

IIRC, DRM was ingrained into the OS a bit more in Vista, and not taken/mentioned further in Win7.

For true DRM to work as M$ wanted, then off-line apps need to be stopped, ie the cloud.
For this to be done, apps need to be re-written.
M$ users may very well be upset.
Software Companies won't mind, yearly"or more" paid for updates via apps store, if online problems they can also blame the comms.

Now if M$ keeps all the code for DRM, and gives users something else to whinge about while pushing user's more towards the cloud. Hmmm the desktop.
Remember they still have Win7 going and available, and whats even better is you pay again for another M$ OS.

 

[King Arthur]

To a certain degree I do agree with this... but
How much of the win32 API are they changing?

To my understanding, the code behind Win32 is allegedly getting bogged down because of a need to maintain high levels of backwards compatibility throughout development, which includes making it so Win32 programs that use unintended quirks in the API or uses the API in ways that were not intended will continue to function properly. For all I know, this really could be putting lots of work into maintaining and developing Win32, but as an end-user Win32 is 100% the reason why I (and I presume many others) use Windows; the complete failure of Windows RT adoption is a blatant sign that Win32 is what makes Windows practical and appealing.

IIRC, DRM was ingrained into the OS a bit more in Vista, and not taken/mentioned further in Windows 7.

Most of it had to do with DRM on entertainment media like movies and music, DVDs and Blu-Rays. The code and standards for it are there in Vista and 7, but they weren't ever put into use on a large scale as far as I know because of the backlash Vista received regarding them.

For true DRM to work as M$ wanted, then off-line apps need to be stopped, ie the cloud.
For this to be done, apps need to be re-written.

This is exactly why MS wants to kill Win32 in favor of WinRT. WinRT and its related infrastructure like Windows Store are designed in a way to enpower MS, and once Win32 is gone devs and vendors need to port to and develop for WinRT if they want to continue to enjoy the benefits of Windows's market share.

Remember they still have Windows 7 going and available, and whats even better is you pay again for another M$ OS.

Indeed Windows 7 is available for now, but MS is making it quite clear they don't want to support or encourage Windows 7 any more than they are obligated to. The refusal to issue an SP2 for Windows 7, nor backport DX11.1 are clear signs of MS trying to distance themselves as much as possible from Windows 7 without breaking any standing obligatory support commitments. In a way, I'll say Windows 7's "mainstream" support doesn't feel "mainstream" at all.

Apologies for responding in a slice-and-dice fashion, but I was unsure how to respond in a more fluid writing style without making another TL;DR post.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
I'm sure this horse has been flogged to death.
If you don't like, need or want Windows 8 don't bother with it -- you don't have to and W7 will still be available for a long tome yet.

However if Ms wants to try and make what IT feels is a more appropriate OS for the hardware available now why on earth shouldn't it.

What people here seem to be making an error on is that they seem to want a "newer W7" -- well for all sorts of reasons it can't reasonably be done --hence the need to design new OS'es. - By the logic expressed on this Forum by some people we'd sill be using XP (assuming we ever got beyond Windows 98 in the first place).

I really can't see what the beef is -- Don't like it (W8) then don't use it.

Ms isn't going "Bust" anytime soon -- remember it DOES have a lot of other divisions (all profitable) than purely Windows.

I suggest you forget what the sceptics say and have a look at the Markets view on MS -- a lot better than APPLE. Here's last Fridays market close for MSFT.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[boohbah]

WELL said jimbo

 

[PaulGo]

What people here seem to be making an error on is that they seem to want a "newer W7" -- well for all sorts of reasons it can't reasonably be done --hence the need to design new OS'es. - By the logic expressed on this Forum by some people we'd sill be using XP (assuming we ever got beyond Windows 98 in the first place).

Can you elaborate on the "all sorts of reasons". Other than Microsoft greed and panic in falling behind on the tablet and smartphone OS I can't think of one reason desktop users need to deal with a "Metro" interface. It's easy to talk in generalities, but give me a list of specifics.

 

[sygnus21]

I promised myself I would again with an open mind try Win8 on a new Asus i5 laptop which advertised it was optimized for 8.

What I learned is that I can't stand the Metrosexual start screen even for half a day, can't wait to install Windows 7 Start Menu for Windows 8 to have the replica 7 Start Menu. Then it's no faster or better than Win7 dual-booted on a second partition.

In this case I noticed this "optimized" Win8 was a bit sluggish so also clean reinstalled 8 to a third partition without the Asus bloatware, which unlike most Asus hardware is crap. Sure enough an 8 Clean Install (like Win7 Clean Install) is considerably faster than the "Optimized for Win8" Asus bloatware install.

I ended up running Factory reset and taking the PC back because it felt like cheap plastic compared to my ten year old HP 510 which even full of sand weighs only slightly more but feels like solid steel by comparison, and runs Win7 just as fast with a Celeron and 1gb.

This is why I always say its Win7 and the install that matters.

Hi Greg,

I have a Windows 8 Asus "bloatware" machine and other than just removing the installed anti-virus and one other program, I've not removed anything else and my experience with the machine thus far is fast and clean. And though I'm not a fan of the Windows 8 start screen, I find the OS isn't as bad as I thought, or bad mouthed.

Anyway the notebook runs just fine with it. This is an Asus Zenbook Prime with the latest i7 processor, 4gig of RAM and a 256gb SSD drive.

 

[King Arthur]

What people here seem to be making an error on is that they seem to want a "newer W7" -- well for all sorts of reasons it can't reasonably be done --hence the need to design new OS'es. - By the logic expressed on this Forum by some people we'd sill be using XP (assuming we ever got beyond Windows 98 in the first place).

Putting aside small changes like the removal of the "classic" Start Menu and addition of security features like UAC, fundamentally there's nothing different between Windows XP and 7 in their design besides improvements to better support newer hardware (ie: SATA HDDs, and SSDs) and newer BIOS/UEFI software, and improvements to increase general performance.

A "newer Windows 7", which we would indeed love to have, would consist of kernel improvements we've seen in Windows 8 (faster boot tiemz!!!111!11one11!eleven) while keeping the desktop environment of Windows 7 and improving on it even further with improved support for newer hardware/software such as native USB3 support. It's all very reasonable to do and most end-users would prefer that over Windows 8/Metro/RT on desktops and laptops, it's just MS decided to be unreasonable and make us go their way or the highway; personally, I'm taking the highway on this one.

 

[Dallas 7]

One fact: If Windows 8 had that shiny Aero, most people would have simply liked it and dumped Windows 7. General human psycology, they unconsciously like what appears better!

Hi there
loads of people -- me included didn't like AERO so for us it's no loss at all.
I'm not an internal OS specialist so I've no idea how difficult it is to implement that feature or how it would affect the performance of the OS -- but Linux in its time also had problems with these types of effects -- was it called something like COMPIZ with all sorts of special desk effects including revolving pyramids etc -- however it seemed to cause more problems than it was worth trying to install it......

Cheers
jimbo

Yeah but W7 gave you a CHOICE, and you didn't have to go to a third party to get a half hearted fix.
The only choices W8 gave the desktop folks was "Take it or leave it."
The desktop got thrown under the bus.

 

[mcbeat257]

I absolutely hate windows 8 it's only for Tablet PC's and not other pc's.

 

[FerchogtX]

What people here seem to be making an error on is that they seem to want a "newer W7" -- well for all sorts of reasons it can't reasonably be done --hence the need to design new OS'es. - By the logic expressed on this Forum by some people we'd sill be using XP (assuming we ever got beyond Windows 98 in the first place).

Putting aside small changes like the removal of the "classic" Start Menu and addition of security features like UAC, fundamentally there's nothing different between Windows XP and 7 in their design besides improvements to better support newer hardware (ie: SATA HDDs, and SSDs) and newer BIOS/UEFI software, and improvements to increase general performance.

A "newer Windows 7", which we would indeed love to have, would consist of kernel improvements we've seen in Windows 8 (faster boot tiemz!!!111!11one11!eleven) while keeping the desktop environment of Windows 7 and improving on it even further with improved support for newer hardware/software such as native USB3 support. It's all very reasonable to do and most end-users would prefer that over Windows 8/Metro/RT on desktops and laptops, it's just MS decided to be unreasonable and make us go their way or the highway; personally, I'm taking the highway on this one.

Yes and YES!!! I absolutely agree with this!!!

 

[x BlueRobot]

I don't think other divisions of Microsoft will be profitable soon, have you heard about Xbox? You have to have a Internet Connection permanently on to play games. Software subscriptions instead of licenses?