More Than 3 Out of 4 Enthusiasts Reject Windows 8

[Borg 386]

Summary: There are plenty of legitimate concerns about the Windows 8 interface. But if you think the removal of the Start menu is the root cause of those problems, you're mistaken. See for yourself.

Sorry, but bringing back the Start menu won't help Windows 8 | ZDNet

 

[lehnerus2000]

Interesting

Ed Bott must be spinning wildly in that article.

His W7 search results don't match my results.

​

Sure my Start Menu is taller than his, but I get more results in the categories that we have in common.

 

[SIW2]

Ed is a huge windows supporter. What do you expect his articles to say?

 

[FerchogtX]

SSo , he spects me to change settings I have no need to mess with in Windows 7 just to make the experience more comfortable? CMON!!!!!!!!!! IS HE NUTS? Why in hell I need to do that if Windows 7 has all the shortcuts I need, at the touch of one click... I DON'T need to pin control panel just because IS ALREADY THERE!...

What he needs is to be in the shoes of any of those costumers that are TIRED of battling around with Windows 8 and it's "improvements"... There is no excuse, Windows 8 is the biggest fail they ever had... heck, I can even guarantee is worse than Windows Vista... and know why? Because Vista was unable to run on hardware that could run Windows XP perfectly (512 MB RAM? You serious?) and that was AGAIN a BIG fail in marketing, instead of admiting that Vista could run fluidly on systems that had 1 GB or more of RAM (and I'm not talking about CPU speed and VGA requirements, in that time those were just ridiculous)... Windows 8 is worse becaue the interface is the problem, complcated, hidden stuff, dammed things for touch screens, Modern UI for desktops (really? REALLY?) instead of keeping the weel known and safe proofing experience... even Mac does better integrating it's devices...

Admit it already MS... W8 is a big fail, and it will continue to fail until you realize that a PC and laptops ARE NOT the same as a Tablet or Smartphones, and want it or not, you need a different aproach for each device, PERIOD!

 

[Night Hawk]

It is a bit more then just the Start orb and menu alone while that is a centralized point you work out from no longer seen in W8. From the Start menu, Windows Explorer if set to show at the bottom of any explorer window, or pinning the CP icon to the taskbar you can always get to everything in the Control Panel. In 8 instead you have to find the hidden right click menu right where the Start screen popup appears covering up that little tid bit. The CP link is hdden away in the menu there. The Crawler Toolbar that appears on the right side of the screen only reveals a limited number in the Apps and Settings but no Control Panel access. You are being bounced around looking for this or that hidden in this or that adding extra steps to each task! And now for the latest news about 8 continuing to fail regardless here's.... Windows 8 continues to fail | ZDNet

 

[Dallas 7]

It is a bit more then just the Start orb and menu alone while that is a centralized point you work out from no longer seen in W8. From the Start menu, Windows Explorer if set to show at the bottom of any explorer window, or pinning the CP icon to the taskbar you can always get to everything in the Control Panel. In 8 instead you have to find the hidden right click menu right where the Start screen popup appears covering up that little tid bit. The CP link is hdden away in the menu there. The Crawler Toolbar that appears on the right side of the screen only reveals a limited number in the Apps and Settings but no Control Panel access. You are being bounced around looking for this or that hidden in this or that adding extra steps to each task!
And now for the latest news about 8 continuing to fail regardless here's.... Windows 8 continues to fail | ZDNet

Interesting stats Night Hawk. If M$ hadn't sold their "claimed" 100 million W8 licenses, people might get the wrong impression with 8 still running sooo far behind the lowly Vista! :sarc:

 

[Dallas 7]

The problems with Windows 8 weren’t caused by the removal of the Start menu. All of the things you can do with the Start menu in Windows 7 can be accomplished using the new interface.

Sorry, but bringing back the Start menu won't help Windows 8 | ZDNet

Sorry Ed but that "new interface" IS the problem.
M$ unappologetically and arrogantly shortchanged their desktop users with a touchscreen oriented interface designed specifically for tablets and phones.

I believe you're right about one thing Ed, it'd take more than just a start button or menu to fix W8.
The fix is, remove it from desktops and put it where it belongs, on tablets and phones.
Then give desktop PCs an interface designed for desktops!

 

[lehnerus2000]

Vista

Ed is a huge windows supporter. What do you expect his articles to say?

Apparently he wrote several articles critical of Vista (according to people commenting on his W7 and W8 articles).
I never installed Vista and as a result I didn't read those articles.

 

[Layback Bear]

I never used Vista because of all the bad reports by users.
Vista did do one great thing. It opened the door for Windows 7. Many good things from Vista went into Window7. Microsoft picked up the ball and ran with it and now we have a great system, Windows 7.

 

[whs]

I never used Vista because of all the bad reports by users.

Too many people went by the hearsy regarding Vista. But after SP1, Vista was a great system. My wife is still running with Vista on 2 laptops and loves it.

Watch this short video - you may find yourself in the crowd, LOL.

Project Mojave - Windows Vista Perception - YouTube

 

[Layback Bear]

Good video thanks whs. You got to give me some credit I did choose Windows 7. I have heard the SP-2 even made Visa better.

 

[whs]

Good video thanks whs. You got to give me some credit I did choose Windows 7. I have heard the SP-2 even made Visa better.

Right, Vista did better and better with age - like a good wine. I never had real problems at the beginning either and I was a Vista customer of the first hour (Febr. 1, 2007). There were a few minor glitches like with the router setup but with the help of Netgear I mastered that.

I think that Windows 7 would never have been possible without Vista as the predecessor. Some people even called Windows 7 the SP3 of Vista.

 

[Juxxize]

Hi there
What exactly am I missing --and I'm a lowly Engineer so the hotshots at Ms who actually DESIGN and WRITE windows should be able to understand far better than me.

A DESKTOP OS is totally different in operation and conception from a MOBILE PHONE / TABLET OS -- so why on earth have Ms apparently given up on the desktop - desktops (probably in the form of laptops) aren't going away any time soon - there are 100,000's of scenarios where a tablet or phone isn't suitable.

It's just SO obvious that I really fail to understand what exactly Ms's problem is. Make the OS capable in of running in TWO user selectable modes. Can't be that difficult - after all people have added 3rd party stuff like Start 8 etc.

I have to surmise that it's really case of egos and politics.

Let's hope somebody starts teaching "Real world situations" to these guys.

Cheers
jimbo

mainly to the

desktops (probably in the form of laptops) aren't going away any time soon - there are 100,000's of scenarios where a tablet or phone isn't suitable.

I love my smartphone and android tablet but will always need and want to use a PC for other stuff that tablets and wot-not aren't cut out for.

 

[gregrocker]

Advancements made in WIn7 are what saved Vista so that many don't' even remember what a mess it was at release.

With the Aero overhead and having most Services set to Auto like in XP it bogged down horribly on all but the newest hardware. Users flocked to the Black Viper to edit services to make it tolerable.

Win7 Product Team took a cue from this and working feverishly developed Fast Triggers that allowed all Services not needed at Startup to be set to Manual, which had not been done in XP for services that needed to be instant-on. This was all logged in the Win7 Developers Blog which fascinated and made me a beta junkie. These 7 advancements were also rushed into Vista SP1 and made it a decent OS, even more so as hardware specs improved.

But the real genius was and is Win7, the best OS ever until a worthy successor is developed that continues the perfect desktop experience that powers the world economy.

 

[Night Hawk]

I never used Vista because of all the bad reports by users.

Too many people went by the hearsy regarding Vista. But after SP1, Vista was a great system. My wife is still running with Vista on 2 laptops and loves it.

Watch this short video - you may find yourself in the crowd, LOL.

Project Mojave - Windows Vista Perception - YouTube

That's precisely the problem for the older version! Too many listened to hype while MS didn't help any initially by skimping out on what was actually needed for minimum system specs to allow OEMs to continue to slide by short changing on memory and cpu speeds back then. 512mb minimum? should have been 2gb! ---Having a cpu speed of 2.2ghz or faster would have also been a help for the then larger then XP version of Windows. It was found to be less buggy even before SP1 while SP2 turned into a solid OS. It replaced a bugged OS from Day #1 namely X(waste)P(ee) rushed out after ME flop sided. Vista was also much furher away from the Blue Screen Special XP had always been! "Crash Central"!

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I never used Vista because of all the bad reports by users.

Too many people went by the hearsy regarding Vista. But after SP1, Vista was a great system. My wife is still running with Vista on 2 laptops and loves it.

Watch this short video - you may find yourself in the crowd, LOL.

Project Mojave - Windows Vista Perception - YouTube

That's precisely the problem for the older version! Too many listened to hype while MS didn't help any initially by skimping out on what was actually needed for minimum system specs to allow OEMs to continue to slide by short changing on memory and cpu speeds back then. 512mb minimum? should have been 2gb! ---Having a cpu speed of 2.2ghz or faster would have also been a help for the then larger then XP version of Windows. It was found to be less buggy even before SP1 while SP2 turned into a solid OS. It replaced a bugged OS from Day #1 namely X(waste)P(ee) rushed out after ME flop sided. Vista was also much furher away from the Blue Screen Special XP had always been! "Crash Central"!

Strange. I never had problems with XP.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Strange. I never had problems with XP.

My issues with XP SP1 vanished as soon as I stopped using IE6 (2004 - 2006) and swapped to Firefox.
I didn't go to XP SP2 until 2007.
I went to XP SP3 in 2008.

 

[Night Hawk]

SP 1 there was vital since the older version had to break the 137gb barrier the service pack addressed once drive capacities were on the increase. In fact XP was first looked at on a much smaller 13gb until getting a 120gb drive in back a decade ago! It was most notorious for system locks as well as the endless BSODs while Vista brought in an immediate desktop recovery crash control process as well as not running into all those Blue Screens! ---Once into Vista for a bit it was obviously time for XP to go back in 2007 other then it lingering on since the old version was still needed to run things that wouldn't run in any form on Vista. But in the long run 7 proved a champ once more when the 32bit 7 could run all those old XP apps without a blink! In fact even old AGP and Realtek XP drivers for onboard sound you wouldn't expect to work at all on the 32bit Vista work on the 32bit 7 showing MS made another smart move in backward compatibility over being struck each time a newer version came out looking for drivers! Unfortunately that was one of the sad facts about waiting a full year for Vista updates!

 

[theveterans]

SP 1 there was vital since the older version had to break the 137gb barrier the service pack addressed once drive capacities were on the increase. In fact XP was first looked at on a much smaller 13gb until getting a 120gb drive in back a decade ago! It was most notorious for system locks as well as the endless BSODs while Vista brought in an immediate desktop recovery crash control process as well as not running into all those Blue Screens! ---Once into Vista for a bit it was obviously time for XP to go back in 2007 other then it lingering on since the old version was still needed to run things that wouldn't run in any form on Vista. But in the long run 7 proved a champ once more when the 32bit 7 could run all those old XP apps without a blink! In fact even old AGP and Realtek XP drivers for onboard sound you wouldn't expect to work at all on the 32bit Vista work on the 32bit 7 showing MS made another smart move in backward compatibility over being struck each time a newer version came out looking for drivers! Unfortunately that was one of the sad facts about waiting a full year for Vista updates!

That's very true. On one of the desktops with Pentium 4 Northwood processor, SoundMAX integrated audio drivers won't even run on Vista 32-bit but worked flawlessly on 7. In addition, Dell wireless 1450 usb adapter drivers won't install on Vista yet runs on 7 fine using compatibility mode. This really was a win for 7 in my book.

 

[Night Hawk]

When first getting into the 7 RC builds I knew then that the former Vista/XP dual boot had to go! I no longer needed XP to run the things that wouldn't work on Vista at all despite the compatibility mode options and the run as admin all failing. The 32bit 7 prevailed over all. The only problem for me however was I had already decided to replace the 32bit Windows entirely while still wanting to test and examine the results of the 32bit at the time. The old 32bit XP apps wouldn't run namely a few old game titles as well as knowing that 64bit drivers would be in need. 7 still prevailed either way however!