I think by this time many are wondering if Blue will provide the options that were left out of 8! This may be the comeback role MS is taking since the initial reactions being seen in the market are not what someone at MS was projecting!

As for the other guy's OS like Chrome? Give me a break! Google should have left the OS business alone but came out with a set of half baked IPad, IPhone type OS decisions that are certainly geared for hand helds including the half baked browser that still looks like a beta for something!

As for the open source alternatives that's an endless debate since it is "open source" and forever changing! While both Linux and the Fruit company as well as Solaris by SUN Microsystems are all UNIX based Linux is the "flavor of the month" type OS with countless releases always in the works.

There you first have to choose which base kernel like Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, etc. and then pick a release for so many months. The main advantage despite the drama of what comes next in so many is it's free! But for all of your softwares you still end up paying for what you get as far as the one OS that will run everything. That also brings you right back to 7 or Vista if not running XP or 8! for all those Windows apps except for things like Wine and running VMs on the other OS.

Night Hawk said:

As for the open source alternatives that's an endless debate since it is "open source" and forever changing! While both Linux and the Fruit company as well as Solaris by SUN Microsystems are all UNIX based Linux is the "flavor of the month" type OS with countless releases always in the works.

I thought that MS was planning to do exactly the same thing (i.e. yearly(?) releases, W8.1, W9, etc.).

You really can use a tablet for some work purposes, but it works far better if you're primary an information consumer rather than an information producer. So, sure if you're looking up data from a spreadsheet, searching the Web, or reading e-mail, they're great. But, if you're putting data into a spreadsheet, creating Web-pages or writing long e-mails or documents, the platform can quickly become annoying. Sure you can solve those problems with a Bluetooth keyboard and a mouse but do you know what you call a tablet with a keyboard and a mouse? I call it a laptop computer myself.

And this is why desktops are never beaten by a toy... tablet...

lehnerus2000 said:

Night Hawk said:

As for the open source alternatives that's an endless debate since it is "open source" and forever changing! While both Linux and the Fruit company as well as Solaris by SUN Microsystems are all UNIX based Linux is the "flavor of the month" type OS with countless releases always in the works.

I thought that MS was planning to do exactly the same thing (i.e. yearly(?) releases, W8.1, W9, etc.).

The major difference with MS is that the end user doesn't submit things for review and see them implimented in a new release at some point like you would with Linux distros. When someone comes up with something worthwhile that will improve things the Linux community will then make a decision to include it.

With MS has made some interesting changes over the last several years initially seeing XP SP2 add in new features into the older version while none of that was going to be seen from then on with any newer version's SPs only bugs fixed, security updates, and enabling support for things like new technologies that come along after the initial release.

As for the scheduled release for each newer version MS wanting to get back the 2-3yr. time frame after Vista's late launch gummed up the works a bit since it was a 6yr. wait for the next to come along as well as MS understating what the actual system requirements were! Obviously the larger version on less then adequate hardwares was a bad mix!

8 on the other hand has a progression of the MinWin kernel 7 brought in and will run on the same old tanks Vista slumped on! 7 was found responsive on an old XP boat with only 512mb working until cleaning the contacts and reseating the pair of 512s to then see 1gb total. 7 still was peppy with that and a 128mb AGP video card. When 8 came along it certainly wasn't the peppy response being a problem at least following 7 in that manner as well while suffering a lesser feature driven OS!

So now we look at XP going to way side and what to do for an OS when finding 8 won't work! as many I hear from about that! What to do about an OS for the desktop or laptop? It certainly can't be replaced too well by item #5 in the report now can it? Yet MS deployed that type of gui on 8 and why many reject it for that reason.

As for the Fruit company you shell out the BIG do re' me and run only their softwares with exceptions on their hardwares on their machines that you pay much more for! Ripoff! They see you coming over simply building your own Windows machines!

We alll know about Linux and it's many flavors! as for item #3 but item #2 tanks like 8! Chromebooks are much like smartbooks where the OS is embedded as well as "limited"! No thanks! leading us right back to the Numero Uno #1 OS "7"!

jimbo45 said:

Whether we like it or not there ISN'T any alternative to Windows and there really isn't likely to be any either.

I disagree....there are several excellent distributions around, and its far easier than it used to be, or is made out to be.

Try LinuxMint14 or Zorin....it has almost everything the home user needs.