Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista
kitguru.net
kitguru.net
The solution is to unplug the mouse, and then the keyboard shows up. The level of "broken" this represents in not thoroughly thinking through the change in their UI probably explains the level of resistance to the product. I still run it on all my machines because most of what I do I can do inside the Desktop pane (even on my Win 8 tablet). I can only imagine how painful life would be to an RT user...
Why did i buy a 499$ remote desktop machine? Cause i don't need to carry computing power with me, and the snap in keyboard + usb port (charge my phone/plug in a mouse) + expandable memory is exactly what i need.
TDLR: Hardware quality + preference of metro over android
Also if your work using something like Citrix; clients exist for both platforms for that as well.
Its cool that these Android clients support all this, but I'm surprised.
No way. Complete boat anchor without a mouse.
I think this video explains most of the problems with Windows 8:
Microsoft knows that the consumer desktop market is dwindling and that competing with Apple and Samsung in the consumer mobile space isn't viable at this point. However, the enterprise desktop market isn't going anywhere at this point and leveraging their enterprise desktop dominance as a way into mobile enterprise devices is their best option. IT managers will prefer an end-to-end Win9 solution for all desktops and mobile devices over managing disparate architectures.
Using Good on the iPhone just does not cut it.
It also probably helps that by the time Windows 9 is released, people will have adjusted to the new Metro (Civic?) interface and so the leap won't be as big for businesses looking to upgrade.
I wonder if Microsoft really brings the start menu back in windows 9. If not I'm out
[1]http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-01/business/35501...
Windows Vista broke compatibility(for the better of security) by making it so applications could only write to the User lever directories and would need elevated permissions to make system wide changes, Windows Vista also brought the first major x64 push from Microsoft, which left people with many peripherals that wouldn't work because there weren't 64 bit drivers available. In the time from Vista to 7 applications where updated to follow proper programming guidelines and 64 bit drivers where released, Vista in essence took the blow so Windows 7 could be a success.
In my opinion Windows Vista also has some serious performance issues, for example its caching was way too aggressive and would eat up all available RAM and leave little to none for running programs(I got out of memory errors in Photoshop while Vista had 700+MB of RAM "cached").
I have a laptop with Vista (and a recent SP) and 7 on my desktop. Besides a few UI differences I find it hard to tell them apart at all.
Most of the changes between XP and Vista that I disliked on Vista seem to have persisted unchanged in 7. I find network configuration much more confusing on Vista and 7 than on XP for example.
Perhaps earlier versions of Vista did have issues with memory management but as far as I can tell they have been improved by recent service packs.
From my experience, Vista was hated due to very poor driver support, the ever-annoying UAC, and the fact that the new Aero UI (along with misc. other system services) took a significant toll on system resources.
At least the first 2 issues were both largely resolved via service packs, which is why you're probably not suffering much from those problems. The last issue was jointly resolved through some refinement of Aero, and the fact that the marginal resource cost became less significant once more powerful systems became available at cheaper costs.
The crux of the problem though, is that many people found under Vista that many of their devices quit working, their PC was slower, and they were getting pop-ups from UAC for basically everything that they clicked on.
Vista wasn't terrible per se, but it's negatives outweighed the positives for many people, and when you boil that result down to a binary value representing whether you think it was "good" or "bad", then the result is going to be "bad".
My guess is that someone in the Windows org has this working.
(I won't get into the quality of the Win8 UI, since I have not used it yet. Maybe it's the bee's knees and I'm just believing all the anti-hype).
Windows 8 is an operating system for tablets. On desktops and laptops it's an experiment at most - touch screens are not ubiquitous, and it remains to be seen whether they will be successful on 'traditional computers'.
I think everyone would be better off if Microsoft had released Windows 8 as a tablet operating system, providing other improvements as a service pack for Windows 7. But they are probably making a bet: businesses will stick with Windows 7 for a while, and they are probably hoping that consumers get as much Metro-exposure as possible via Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Windows RT.
I don't like it. So, I'll stick with OS X on the desktop and iOS/WP8 on phones ;).
Edit: I wanted to add that I do like Metro a lot... For touch devices.
Somebody already published one in SourceForge. I realy doubt MS can't do that.
But then, MS's strategy is to risk their PC dominance to make inroads at portables. Such a patch would antagonize their (failing) marketing efforts.
And another, proprietary option: http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
They are actively moving against one of their main customers (OEMs) by trying to directly compete with them on hardware. This is a business 101 blunder that comes from not understand what you are selling and why you are selling it.
Microsoft is losing the second main customer through deprecation of old assets (VB6 compatibility issues, etc), and by drastically changing their product so that expensive training and orientation is needed to transition users. In addition, the new OS does not even improve workflow for the main Windows user: an office drone updating Excel worksheets and using Outlook email. Microsoft is also losing their handle on the developer mindset as larger numbers of developers transition to Web/iOS/Android platforms for bread-and-butter applications.
This is a now classic case of a business losing track of their target market, and they will suffer deeply if they don't make rapid and enormous culture and product changes within the next 2-3 years.
The new Modern(ex Metro) UI is a big Start menu(now called start screen). You go to it only when you login to your machine after restart, after a login from sleep/hibernate/lock if you have left it on the desktop , it stays there. Everything else is like or better than Win 7.
Also you only go to the start screen when you need to find or start an app. Yes , for some users it would suck to see the Start Screen after booting, would be nice if there was option to select which screen to show after boot.
Also , the Start Screen is very good tool for organizing Apps. You can create columns of apps (not automatically though) by type , use case or whatever order your heart desires. And i find the start screen better replacement of the desktop for placing my icons ( i dislike cluttered desktops as i see it more often than the Start Screen)
It's a solid incremental upgrade that they will miss out on. Everything you said is absolutely true.
With Win8 - you have an install base that is already fairly content with Win7, a new interface that gets mixed reviews in the trade press -- yet people who use it find things they both like and dislike, and as others have stated computers have been "good enough" for awhile.
I'm not sure if/how Win8 will play out, but corporate upgrade cycles and OEMs will play heavily into that. That said, a number of formerly PC only corporate environments are becoming more Apple friendly, which will also have an impact.
It's also absurd, that it takes something like five seconds for a clicked link in MetroTwit to open in my desktop browser.
Only down side? The lack of start menu. But since that can be easily fixed with Start8 (Google it), then there is no reason to not upgrade.
If you run windows 7, then stop wasting time and upgrade to 8.
My guess is this kind of sentiment explains the slow sales - Windows 7 is good enough for almost everyone, and Microsoft don't have a great brand in this area given Vista (and ME), and many underwhelming Office updates.
If you run 7, stay on 7.
If you're getting a new computer, don't fear 8, though it will take a little time getting used to.
If you have a corporate office and will be replacing 500 pc's, you better do some tests with your users before you even think about 8.
Thought I would format the drive before install, so booted up BartPE to format/partition the SSD (single primary 100%, 1024 block size), then rebooted to install Windows 8. Wouldn't activate due to it apparently not being an upgrade on an existing installation (woops!). Turns out I just needed to create a [N]:\Windows folder on one of the other disk drives before I installed. Anyways, had to reinstall it again..
At first I suffered revulsion, I mean, 17 years of muscle memory moving mouse to start button does not die easily. I was almost tempted to wipe it and re-install Windows 7.
As I have started modifying/customising the o/s, I'm beginning to like it more. I vaguely remember hating Windows 7 when I first upgraded from XP (I never bought vista)
Ctrl+Esc serves as a nice way to swap between metro/classic. It just sucks that there was less integration between Metro and desktop apps - they could have done something to make it more seamless surely?
Even though Windows 8 has only been out a couples of months, there are a fair few patches necessary
The Windows key does that as well.
The Start screen / metro stays out of the way. There are improvements that can be made, sure, but it's not horrible. As a whole, Windows 8 provides better performance. Plus the upgrade was cheap ($15 for me).
As long as a keyboard is handy with the Windows Start key, no worries. Start Menu? Windows Start. Charms sidebar? Windows C. All Programs menu? Windows Z. Logout? Windows, click the login name, Log Out.
The zones for the mouse/touch for the Start Menu and Charms sidebar a too sensitive, so I just show folks the Start key on the keyboard.
The hardest part now is removing all of the cruft systems integrators are shoving into the Start Menu, especially if they are live-feed updated content - Just like remoting into a system that has yahoo.com or msn.com as the home page: I have to wait awhile before the UI is responsive again to a remote user. Can't have those flash-based ads slack in performance, can we?
Our app is productivity based and I don't think windows 8 is attractive to this segment.
Therefore, Y > X? What the fuck.
I was in Fry's Electronics last week, went to the laptop section, and couldn't find any touchscreen Windows devices in their sea of laptops they had on display. I had to ask a salesman, and he had to point out to me the one they had on display.
I imagine that once touchscreen devices and monitors become the standard, people will be more inclined to go with Windows 8, so I haven't written off its success yet.
Or, I guess the pessimistic flip-side to that is that the market has spoken, and there isn't a strong demand for such devices running Windows 8?
For that matter, same question with s/a touch screen/Windows 8/g. Seriously, I haven't seen any commercial that tells me what Windows 8 will actually do for me. Live tiles and "doodle passwords" are nifty, but I'm not going to drop several hundred dollars for these.
I think the idea isn't so much that every PC needs a touch screen, it is more that it is a good thing for the OS to be able to take advantage of one that is there. The marketing message certainly leans towards "You need a touchscreen", but I don't think that was driving the technical choices 2 or 3 years ago. If there is a touchscreen and the OS knows about it, it might as well be able to run apps designed for touchscreens.
(I find all the complaining about the missing start menu pretty irrelevant, hunt and click is a terrible interface compared to a searching launcher. But I guess they did a poor job of understanding who was going to end up using the new launcher.)
I'm curious to see how many people got tablets over the holidays and if Windows 8 use increases some.
Windows 8 is so different than the previous versions of Windows it's quite obvious people are out of their comfort zone. But I think it's good to see some attempts at change and this change is not "just because" it's a valid attempt at spurring sales because of the tablet craze.
I like Windows 8 but I am comfortable with computer and even I find it quite a leap there's no way my elderly relatives could figure it out, they have trouble even with Windows 7/Vista/XP.
That said, my parents, when actually confronted with it, were fine; they weren't huge fans, but using the new interface wasn't a problem after they adjusted.
It's not the end of the world. But it's not a good interface either.
Metro is actually pretty simple on a touch device. I've seen iOS users figuring out the interface in no time. I think Microsoft's real problem is that for most people tablets are a different device category than laptops or desktops, so the choice for Windows is not automatic. Evenmore, most people in the market probably played with friends' or family's iPads and are more likely to choose an iPad, or perhaps an Android device if they have an Android phone.
Only recently my Aunt went from dial-up AOL to fiber Internet but her CRT monitor is so fuzzy I can barely read it. She uses Word Perfect and barely uses the 20GB hard drive she has.
She's the most tech knowledgeable of my relatives too she worked in a government office for decades but even Win 7 would be confusing.
But she said may soon splurge and buy a new PC but by that time it will all be Win8 so I am dreading that day, I read you can downgrade Win8 to be like Win7 I may look into that more.
And it seems like Win9 is still sticking with this failed UI paradigm: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-9-Won-t-Bring-Back-th...
The problem is that these are all tied to the Metro interface. Once Microsoft supports these in the classic desktop and stops pushing users into Metro then it'll be a decent OS again.