More Than 3 Out of 4 Enthusiasts Reject Windows 8

[Night Hawk]

This has been the entire issue from the start. MS simply worked out a Tablet gui for Surface and stuck in 8! The core itself would be equal to an updated but stripped 7 core with a tablet gui tossed on it fast great for 8 Compact Edition and tablet but not to be considered a suitable replacement for the desktop side of things.

"Well gee..." asks the OEMs "what do we put on our new pcs?" with the MS answer "well you can still point and click on the large tiles so we'll stick the Windows 8 name on it and call it a day!" leaving everyone hanging from there while MS ventures off into the mobile market trying to be the late comer taking on the other two giants already well established with feeble attempts. (if you have a W8 tablet tv spot lately you would know.... trying to compare Surface to IPxx?)

I still haven't but will be stuffing 8.1 on a VM having already that a fast temp install on a second might not happen at all since I wouldn't be going with 8 anyways. 7 is here to stay! MS cut things out that I use frequently here as far as WMP while I still keep other players I use that for playback of video captures even while the tuner card itself has it's own rather awkward multi step playback methods which leave you wondering!

Some of the older programs I still am even able to continue using now on the 64bit OS let alone 3 versions newer on 7 will not run on 8 at all which would then require a dual boot which "flopped" here fast when already finding the new secure boot process seen in 8 cause disk errors and OS stalls when dual booting with the 8 BCD not loading 8 from the 7 BCD. The two would need to be isolated completely and not very practical to only occasionally boot into 8 just because it is newer?!

Now this is where the entire process has been a big let down for most! Once a winner like 7 comes along you can suspect the next version would suffer at first a bit since the previous became an instant champion of OSs! You would generally assume however that MS was finally getting it together to actually learn from past mistakes and follow up on the winner 7 story. WRONG! MS fails to learn that lesson of what does sell namely something that works! daaaaa....

 

[lehnerus2000]

Is this what you were looking for?

Well, I had another crack at that W7 machine, what is sorely lacking is that traditionally the appearance tab in the display box has the drop-downs;
Item
Colour Scheme
Font.
W7 is lacking the 'Color scheme' drop-down, but still allows the tedious process of DIY, NH, the stock schemes were usually my starting point to some pleasing desktops [well, my preferences].

MS pointlessly changed the desktop customisation feature locations in Vista.
This was adjusted slightly in W7.

Click picture for animation

​

In W8, they moved almost everything to new locations, just to make customising the OS "more fun". :sarc:

 

[Dallas 7]

For example to get at the system Menus instead of using the W7 start menu you can simply press Windows + X key. Windows + M minimizes all running applications and presents you with your desktop etc etc.
Loads more.


Cheers
jimbo

Loads more? I'll bet the average user out there just can't wait to start memorizing "loads more" secret steps to make 8.1 work almost as good as W7.

 

[Lone Browncoat]

MS pointlessly changed the desktop customisation feature locations in Vista.
This was adjusted slightly in W7.In W8, they moved almost everything to new locations, just to make customising the OS "more fun". :sarc:

Got more time on it [yes, it was the Enterprise version] last night and saw that, forgot that the clincher for me was "3D Objects", but too much fiddling to get it any where near what I had in mind, it would have been better for M$ to retain the sets of schemes as a base to work from.

Though now I know what I want and how to...just need time to finish the new box, AND I was just told I have to work the 1st of July holiday (time and a half?/double?) ....see what I mean.. !

 

[bobafetthotmail]

@ bobafetthotmail
Of course there are alternative software packages. However, the professional world uses MS Office and sending a Libre office document would send a negative message IMO and wouldn't work if the document (eg Excel) contained macros. I doubt a serious professional photographer would be using GIMP. Then we could go on to specialist CAD packages etc etc.

Libre office can make docx just fine. Excel is mostly used in-house and you can adapt to that.
I have yet to see a photographer that has enough cash to buy a photoshop, and there are plenty of CADs and engineering simulators that work on Linux, even professional CAD/engineering-oriented linux distros like this.

The situation atm is a catch-22, they don't use linux because none uses linux because none uses linux.... and so on. But whoever breaks free from that will help start the wheel turning.

 

[PaulGo]

Review: Windows 8.1 widens gap with older PCs

...After some hands-on time with it, the update seems to me like a patch over an ever-widening chasm.

...After spending several hours with devices running Windows 8.1, it remains unclear to me whether a touch-based environment is what traditional Windows users want to accomplish the productive tasks for which they've come to rely on Windows.


...Unfortunately, the "All Apps" page feels like too much. An array of icons easily covers two full screens. Although you can re-organize the apps into categories, alphabetically, by date installed or by frequency of use, there are too many icons to make it easy to

Plattsburgh Press-Republican -AP News

 

[Night Hawk]

For example to get at the system Menus instead of using the W7 start menu you can simply press Windows + X key. Windows + M minimizes all running applications and presents you with your desktop etc etc.
Loads more.


Cheers
jimbo

Loads more? I'll bet the average user out there just can't wait to start memorizing "loads more" secret steps to make 8.1 work almost as good as W7.

i'm rushing to get my note pad now to take dictation on .... :sarc: Like "H"! Can you be sure everyone wants to even bother to learn all those keyboard shortcuts over simply having the conventional wisdom of simply seeing a "Desktop" gui on a desktop machine?

If you are taking Clerical or some other ismilar office orientated type document processing/handling course where typing is required then you would be in a position to familiarize yourself with some extra items to add to the list. But when you are out there pointing, clicking, scrolling with mice only with traditional desktop OSs and then run into a Tabloidlet type gui where things are scrambled up you soon find yourself pounding your head. :banghead:

Does 8.1 still require the ModernMix app in order to have windowed apps running? I suspect you wouldn't see that addressed since it is still a tablet gui and cannot be anywhere close to 7 at the front office! Under the hood you have the basics while the dressing is still lacking as far as the desktop platform for which 8 was never intended to begin with just simply made available so MS could say they had something new out. No matter how you try you are still going to be taking home a tablet not desktop OS.

 

[Dallas 7]

For example to get at the system Menus instead of using the W7 start menu you can simply press Windows + X key. Windows + M minimizes all running applications and presents you with your desktop etc etc.
Loads more.


Cheers
jimbo

Loads more? I'll bet the average user out there just can't wait to start memorizing "loads more" secret steps to make 8.1 work almost as good as W7.

i'm rushing to get my note pad now to take dictation on .... :sarc: Like "H"!

:roflmao:I'm with you Night Hawk, I'm with you.

 

[4wd]

Many are not happy with 8, and 8.1's hoax\fake start button did not help at all.

Huge protests calling for the resignation of MS CEO Steve Ballmer and the reinstating of the real start menu are taking place in the MS capital, Redmond, and other cities.

Protesters accuse Mr Ballmer of failing to tackle 8's user interface problems.

In Redmond, they have been chanting: "Irhal! Irhal!" ("Leave! Leave!")

ahhh, sorry, it was BBC News - Egypt Morsi: Mass political protests grip cities

 

[gregrocker]

An unmitigated disaster. They remained too stubborn to revert the features needed and desired to continue the perfect desktop experience achieved in Win7, which is what the world depended upon MS for.

It's even clearer now this is due to a new business model where they hoped to monetize apps on a subscription basis - perhaps even the OS eventually.

The effect is to continue the utter ruin of new PC sales, forcing users to decide to buy a copy of Win7 if they want the desktop experience which made MS famous and was perfected in Win7.

There is now a "worst of both worlds" situation where they missed their target for the tablet market by not emphasizing live tiles' advantage over Ipad static icons, while ruining the desktop experience by forcing a touchscreen-format GUI on new desktop PC's.

They may yet fulfill their own mistaken prophecy that the desktop is dying. How ridiculous is that when you consider almost all of the productive work that drives the world economy is done from/on the desktop!

We have a situation now where the MS desktop experience is only offered in Win7, the reason business doing the final migration from XPired is moving nearly 100% into Win7 even after a scare campaign from MS IT publications that without Secure Boot their company PC's would be eaten by BIOS infections - which I've yet to even see.

This makes our mission even more important. I will stay loyal to the OS which made me a techie until the bitter end. They may yank my MVP for not migrating as instructed to Win8, but I will continue here with the top tech team in the world providing the quality support for the best OS ever. This remains the home for Win7.

 

[Scoop]

Hi there
@Scoop

Actually using Windows keyboard short cuts in W8 makes the whole system much more USEABLE believe it or not -- there's loads of keyboard short cuts -- rather too many to explain than the scope of this post allows. In some ways once you can get over the hideous start screen (which in windows 8.1 you don't even need to see any more) there are many more interesting and useable short cut keys than Windows 7 provides.

For example to get at the system Menus instead of using the W7 start menu you can simply press Windows + X key. Windows + M minimizes all running applications and presents you with your desktop etc etc. Loads more.

Another useable function is the use of user custom toolbars for quickly accessing a menu like system - example shown below. No need for 3rd party apps -- simply a custom toolbar.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks for the info. I recall the Win-X function when I was looking at 8 in a local computer store. I have Win-X mapped as Alt-F4 so I can close pages with one hand .

I also use that to bring up the Windows "shutdown/sleep/restart" menu at Desktop-active mode but I usually use Win-S to call the DLL for "Standby" (sleep) mode.

I don't often use Win-M but it's useful at times. I have my right Win key remapped as Win-D since I use that one a lot. I also have my right "alt" key mapped as "Ctrl-W" or F5 since I use the refresh function a lot as well.

Loads more? I'll bet the average user out there just can't wait to start memorizing "loads more" secret steps to make 8.1 work almost as good as W7.

Good point. I admit to being in a small minority as a keyBd shortcut user. The mechanical Trackball will last a long time on my PC.

Huge protests calling for the resignation of MS CEO Steve Ballmer and the reinstating of the real start menu are taking place in the MS capital, Redmond, and other cities.

Protesters accuse Mr Ballmer of failing to tackle 8's user interface problems.

In Redmond, they have been chanting: "Irhal! Irhal!" ("Leave! Leave!")

ahhh, sorry, it was BBC News - Egypt Morsi: Mass political protests grip cities[/QUOTE]

An unmitigated disaster. They remained too stubborn to revert the features needed and desired to continue the perfect desktop experience achieved in Win7, which is what the world depended upon MS for.

It's even clearer now this is due to a new business model where they hoped to monetize apps on a subscription basis - perhaps even the OS eventually.

The effect is to continue the utter ruin of new PC sales, forcing users to decide to buy a copy of Win7 if they want the desktop experience which made MS famous and was perfected in Win7.

There is now a "worst of both worlds" situation where they missed their target for the tablet market by not emphasizing live tiles' advantage over Ipad static icons, while ruining the desktop experience by forcing a touchscreen-format GUI on new desktop PC's.

They may yet fulfill their own mistaken prophecy that the desktop is dying. How ridiculous is that when you consider almost all of the productive work that drives the world economy is done from/on the desktop!

We have a situation now where the MS desktop experience is only offered in Win7, the reason business doing the final migration from XPired is moving nearly 100% into Win7 even after a scare campaign from MS IT publications that without Secure Boot their company PC's would be eaten by BIOS infections - which I've yet to even see.

This makes our mission even more important. I will stay loyal to the OS which made me a techie until the bitter end. They may yank my MVP for not migrating as instructed to Win8, but I will continue here with the top tech team in the world providing the quality support for the best OS ever. This remains the home for Win7.

They can have my 7 when they pry it from my cold dead hands

Based on my experience, having been a 7 user since March '10, upgrading from XP....

"I hereby proclaim on this day, the 30th of June 2013 (in Dallas, that is ), that Win 7 is the best Desktop OS to date, bar none. So let it be written, so let it be ordained. Motion carried."

 

[bobafetthotmail]

They may yet fulfill their own mistaken prophecy that the desktop is dying. How ridiculous is that when you consider almost all of the productive work that drives the world economy is done from/on the desktop!

For this reason, they are doing a pretty outrageous assist to Ubuntu and Linux in general. Which isn't so negative overall imho.

Although the desktop is getting back in its corner (not going to die, just stand back from multi-purpose and bunker up in workstation and gaming sectors) only because processors stopped improving fast enough to let them keep their edge over more portable ones. And Android with vastly more power-efficient ARM processors robbing them of the "passive consumer" market share. (simple content consumers)

 

[Gary]

http://www.sevenforums.com/news/273...iasts-reject-windows-8-a-130.html#post2449045

I quoted a post smaller than this and it was removed.??

 

[mjf]

@ bobafetthotmail
Of course there are alternative software packages. However, the professional world uses MS Office and sending a Libre office document would send a negative message IMO and wouldn't work if the document (eg Excel) contained macros. I doubt a serious professional photographer would be using GIMP. Then we could go on to specialist CAD packages etc etc.

Libre office can make docx just fine. Excel is mostly used in-house and you can adapt to that.
I have yet to see a photographer that has enough cash to buy a photoshop, and there are plenty of CADs and engineering simulators that work on Linux, even professional CAD/engineering-oriented linux distros like this.

The situation atm is a catch-22, they don't use linux because none uses linux because none uses linux.... and so on. But whoever breaks free from that will help start the wheel turning.

Let's agree to disagree. MS Office is a far superior product and is preferred by business. No way does Libre Calc offer the same capabilities as Excel (eg. VB support). Powerpoint is superior and both Excel and Powerpoint documents are definitely distributed outside of a business (been there - done it).
I cannot envisage a professional photographer not using Lightroom and CS6. In fact many amateur photographers I know do. I admit most of the Pros appear to prefer Macs.

I'm not saying I like this reality but believe it is the way it is.

 

[derekimo]

http://www.sevenforums.com/news/273...iasts-reject-windows-8-a-130.html#post2449045

I quoted a post smaller than this and it was removed.??

This one?

http://www.sevenforums.com/news/273...iasts-reject-windows-8-a-129.html#post2448440

With the missing quote you mentioned here,

http://www.sevenforums.com/news/295342-w8-1-preview-now-available-technet-2.html#post2448494

 

[essenbe]

for all those who believe Microsoft has learned a lesson and released 8.1, think again. Take a look at the RC Windows Server 2012 with the Metro GUI. I bet the large corporations will love that. Of course, I guess it will match the Windows 8 desktops Microsoft thinks they will buy. Microsoft is simply after the almighty dollar and trying to out Apple, Apple.

 

[Layback Bear]

Desktop Operating System statistics on Net Applications. Why would Microsoft want to copy Apples methods. OS X has 7.06%, Windows has a little over 91%. To hell with the way Apple does it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems




Windows 7  
44.85% Windows XP  
37.74% OS X  
7.06% Windows Vista  
4.51% Windows 8  
4.27% Linux  
1.26% Other  
2.14%
Desktop OS Market Share as of May 2013 Net Applications[1]

 

[Dallas 7]

for all those who believe Microsoft has learned a lesson and released 8.1, think again. Take a look at the RC Windows Server 2012 with the Metro GUI. I bet the large corporations will love that. Of course, I guess it will match the Windows 8 desktops Microsoft thinks they will buy. Microsoft is simply after the almighty dollar and trying to out Apple, Apple.

I totally agree essenbe.
Steve Ballmer ought to be fired, and that's putting it mildly.
Reminds me of this last CEO that took over JC Penney and nearly killed the company. Now they've fired him and they're trying to pick up the pieces.

IMO not only has Ballmer hurt MS, (and 8.1 is just digging the hole deeper) it remains to be seen how much collateral damage has been inflicted on the rest of the industry.

 

[Night Hawk]

Loads more? I'll bet the average user out there just can't wait to start memorizing "loads more" secret steps to make 8.1 work almost as good as W7.

i'm rushing to get my note pad now to take dictation on .... :sarc: Like "H"!

:roflmao:I'm with you Night Hawk, I'm with you.

I have the feeling most are. Once they got a look at 8 and then now are seeing what the 8.1 Blue Flop City Special is all about are simply shaking their heads. Ironically one of the download names for 8.1 is "Windows8-RT" in part only confirming what I have been saying all along is that they simply borrowed the gui from the RT for ARM to run on the 8 Surface Tablets.

MS simply got lazy! and tossed it out quickly as a sub for any actual new desktop version being released and are now trying to pacify the bloggers due to heavy critisms! But it still doesn't work in the long run since you can't change tablet to desktop when designed from the ground up as tablet!

 

[techtitan100]

I'm reading through some reviews about a laptop similar to mine I have a Lenovo IdeaPad N586, I'm looking up reviews for the IdeaPad N585 on Best buy's website and they like the laptop for speed, but they hate Windows 8