Windows 8 launch date announced: October 26th | Hacker News Reader

Windows 8 launch date announced: October 26th

redmondtimes.com

40 pointsdnyanesh31 comments

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm looking forward to the Surface launch. It looks like almost exactly what I'd love to have in a tablet.

Me too, I think the x86 Surface is going to be to me what the dust covered iPad on my shelf never was. However, I'm feeling that Windows 8 on the desktop is going to be a disaster. There's just no benefit to a tablet/phone UI on my desktop.

And that is why noone will use Metro on their desktop for real work.

For a workstation the Windows 7 to Windows 8 transition will be much smaller than the Vista to Windows 7 transition, so I have a hard time understanding how it could be a disaster...

I was of the same opinion before I tried 8, but after a week of use it's actually far easier and better from my perspective. I do not miss the start menu, the start screen is better in almost all ways. it does take some getting used to though. (Oops, I suppose this will be rated as fake by Toshio, downthread, who thinks he can detect fake sentiment in online postings. Guess I'd better report to the corporate overlords for my chip implant.)

How do you deal with the unintuitive gestures? Sliding on a random side of the screen to bring up a random menu?

The edge swipe behavior is new, and a pretty big change, but it's consistent. I didn't find that it took that long to get used to. It took longer to get used to the missing Start button. There's a lot of muscle memory there, so I've opened IE (first icon on my taskbar) on accident a number of times.

Disclaimer: MSFT employee

The IE logo does look at first glance to be the start orb thing. I hit that all the time trying to get to the start corner when my second monitor is to the left of my main monitor.

All the enhancements for multi-monitor support, yet they still didn't anticipate having a monitor to the left of your main...

I honestly don't find it that unintuitive. I may have a leg up since my primary pointing device is a trackpoint, which makes hitting the screen corners a really easy move. When you hit the corner, there are visual hints that pop up to guide you to the start screen, sidebar thing, or open applications list. there are definitely some things I would have suggested that they do to help people into the new interface, like a guided help or pop-up tips, but a quick google and 30 seconds of reading were really all that was required to get into it.

With a few weeks of using W8 as my primary OS, I constantly forget I'm not using 7. The only time I see anything that reminds me I'm on 8 is if I move my mouse over the Charms or when I hit the Windows key to launch a new program.

Massive amount of effort to unify the interface between platforms, simplify choice for the user, and move towards a consistent Microsoft vision and they still insist on putting out a "Pro" version.

I had an interview in Microsoft's local office a couple of months ago and as long as I can tell, they are a company that believes it can increase sales of Office physical boxes, you know the ones with DVDs in them. Of course not all of the company is not like that but they just can't seem to get over the fragmented mentality in the company.

I am actually looking forward to this. I have been using the Windows 8 Release Preview for the last few weeks and I quite like it.

I guarantee that, shortly after the launch date, many tech media outlets will announce:

"XX million copies of Windows 8 shipped."

"Windows 8 sets record for [carefully worded phrase relating to sales volume]"

...et cetera.

Essentially, Microsoft will make a concerted effort to assure potential customers that Windows 8 is something that is being accepted. I guess that's no big surprise.

Will Windows 8 add significant or measurable value to the user currently using Windows 7, Vista or XP? I would argue that the value added for the vast majority of users will not exceed the paltry $40 upgrade cost.

In 10 years, will Windows 8 be viewed as another Windows ME or Windows Vista (i.e., minor updates that were largely viewed as worse than their predecessors)? I don't know, but my initial guess is 'yes.'

I don't really see any universe in which Windows 8 is a minor update.

have you tried it? I want to bash on it but its actually pretty good. they have solved a hard problem of making an OS scale between laptop, desktop, and tablet. the interface is clean and consistent and increasingly the whole Microsoft line is coherent with a simular interface.

A problem that imo doesn't exist. A tablet is different to a phone is different to a desktop computer. This OS may be "solving" some problems, but it seems to be doing it at a cost, reducing functionality on the desktop. Besides, who even /has/ a windows phone or tablet? Who would want one?

Apple might disagree with you... There is a trend where OSX is getting slowly but steadily closer to iOS.

"reducing functionality on the desktop."

That's a pretty bold claim when the desktop still exists exactly like it did in Windows 7. Basically you're saying that all of the functionality of Windows came from having a start menu that is a couple inches tall and a couple inches wide, and by increasing that space it is now less functional. Listen to yourself, seriously.

"Besides, who even /has/ a windows phone or tablet? Who would want one?"

Millions. And to answer the second question, millions.

I've always hated the "XX million copies sold" or "Fastest-selling Windows OS ever."

Windows sales are proportional to PC sales. New Windows OSes come out every 4 years. Assume the GDP increases 2% or 3% per year in that time, and PC shipments increase proportionally (heck, the population of the Earth grows that much).

Every 4 years you can automatically announce "This is the best selling OS ever, ~10% more shipments per month than the one we released 4 years ago".

Here's the press release for Windows Vista:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/2007/mar07/03-2...

"REDMOND, Wash., March 26, 2007 — Initial sales figures from Microsoft show its new operating system Windows Vista made a splash in its debut. In the first month of Windows Vista’s general availability, sales exceeded 20 million licenses, more than doubling the initial pace of sales for its predecessor, Windows XP. These initial figures reflect the broad interest in the security and usability enhancements in Windows Vista."

As expected, Vista smashes sales records compared to XP [GDP growth + 6 years of pent-up demand?]. Was Vista a more successful OS?

Hopefully a few hundred million XP users will upgrade. For me, it's all about Internet Explorer. If Win8 does well, IE10 will be the new minimum for html5, and it's a lot better than the previous IE's.

http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html

Most non-corporate Win7 users should get the IE10 update too. In a year IE8 usage will be in the single digits.

I am not sure, what makes you think that people that didn't upgrade to windows 7 and ie9 will upgrade to windows 8 and ie10?

"IE10 will be the new minimum for html5" I'm not sure what this means, but it sounds horrible, I understand IE is getting better, but it did the damage in the early years, and it burnt its bridges with so many users and developers. I cannot see this changing while MS still execute "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".

What that statement is saying is that the author believes the stable fallback on HTML5 means it will only need to degrade to the point that IE10 will render it.

I don't know... given the proximity to Halloween I'd be more than a little worried at the week one stories likely to come out - particularly if there are ANY bugs.

Some reason that an earlier date in October wouldn't have worked as well given that the master is going out in about a month anyway?

I don't understand how a minor holiday has any bearing on how well a software release will be received?

Is this going to be on MSDNAA like Windows 7 was? Or what is the cheapest/best way to get the Pro version for significantly less than retail?

Buy the upgrade for $40. No word on if it will be on AA or Technet, but odds are it will be when it RTMs in August.

Two days before Bill Gates's birthday! Will he be cutting a trapezoidal-window-shaped cake this year?

Is this a Back to the Future reference?

I'm in the process of building software to detect fake positive sentiment related to tech products. There are a few comments in this section right here that are carefully worded but the software flagged them as fake anyway. It's the type of comment that begins with "I was skeptical at first, but windows 8 won me over in the end" (haha).

I was skeptical at first, but Toshio's false sentiment software won me over in the end.

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