How Microsoft can salvage Windows 8 before it's too late

This is a tough challenge, given that Windows 8 is only a few months away from release. There's not a lot that Microsoft can do in this time. However, given that the Redmond giant has already gone on the record to say that the UI that we see in the Windows 8 Release Preview is not what will be in the final release, it's safe to say that things are in a certain state of flux.

As I've said on numerous occasions, the biggest problem with Windows 8 is the way that the dumbed-down Metro UI has been unceremoniously bolted onto the mature and well-refined "Classic" user interface. While there's no doubt that the existing UI is flawed, bolting on a UI designed for touch devices is not the answer.

OK, you asked me to keep this concise, so here it is. Here's how I think Microsoft should tweak Windows 8 before it's released:

Read more at:
How Microsoft can salvage Windows 8 before it's too late | ZDNet

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Thanks Brink - heh - heh - heh

 

[SIW2]

The topic has finished - rtm has shipped -it is already too late.

They might be able to fix with the next o/s - I think we may not have to wait 3yrs for it.

 

[Frank1]

The topic has finished - rtm has shipped -it is already too late.

They might be able to fix with the next o/s - I think we may not have to wait 3yrs for it.

That is exactly what I was thinking as I read some of the responses to the article. It's too late to fix it. It's a little bit like sending up a rocket to the moon, and when it's nearly there they try to bring it back to fix a problem before it reaches the moon.

 

[SIW2]

They will have to build another, better, rocket pretty soon.

 

[Mustang]

At this point I've given up on RP. At least with CP I had a degree of stability after loading Win8 on a separate HD with normal Win7 HD disconnected so no joint boot menu. If Win8 HD was plugged into eSATA it auto booted to Win8. If unplugged from eSATA, Win7 started normally.

At first this seemed to work with RP. But then for no apparent reason problems began to appear. Each time after running Win8 on eSATA, and unplugging, on boot Win7 gave warning: "Disk consistency needs to be checked." Then the same message would appear each time Win8 was booted on eSATA. Then suddenly on booting Win8 error message said start repair needed to be run. It failed, and Win8 would not boot. Start repair also failed when run from installation DVD. That's when I gave up on it and am not doing anymore until RTM is out.

Also after RP wouldn't boot, it left Win7 with the optical drives not working, and several other buggy things happening, like deleting an email on desktop, but the file not deleting until a log off/on was done, etc. Seems I can't run 7 & 8 on the same maching, let alone the same HD.

Can Win8 be salvaged? Probably better odds of raising the Titanic! I hope not in it's present state. Maybe October 26 will defintively answer that question? it still sticks in my craw that MS refuse to provide a direct boot to desktop and legacy start menu when it can so easily be done!

 

[mart4494]

Can Win8 be salvaged? Probably better odds of raising the Titanic! I hope not in it's present state. Maybe October 26 will defintively answer that question? it still sticks in my craw that MS refuse to provide a direct boot to desktop and legacy start menu when it can so easily be done!

Don't think much is going to change on October 26. Win8 is not going to fly with in it's present form and certainly not going to outperform Win7 from a sales point of view.

What will be flying though will be the Windows Eight forum. It will probably be the most visited help forum on the planet for all the poor folks that have bought into Win8 Metro (sorry, still can't stop using that word even though it's apparently been banned by MS), or had it 'forced' on them by an OEM somewhere.

Like your point about the rocket Frank. Think that sums it up in a sentence.

 

[Mustang]

They will have to build another, better, rocket pretty soon.

Old rocket salavageable ... Naw! Take two!

 

[SIW2]

The rtm is actually quite usable - at least it is if you use Classic shell to replicate some of the functions MS have abandoned.

Out of the box, rtm is awful.

 

[rich4421972]

consumers will either stay on Window 7 or flock to OSX and most enterprises won't touch Linux at the desktop level. Let's not forget that a majority of enterprises use Microsoft backend infrastructure that even OSX still struggles with, can't imagine the cost of implementing Linux desktops in that environment.

Think most folks round here have a look at whatever Linux from time to time, well at least I do and you keep coming up with the 'almost there' feeling. But that's been the case for several years and it's simply not going to happen.

In my case I need to run Adobe software. Sure there are open source options like possibly Gimp - no where up to the polish of Photoshop though and that will only run CS1 or 2 (from memory) under Wine. So there's really no real world benefits.

I think I disagree (at least a little). Recently, my college, Washington State University, switched from Solaris 9 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7. I was very surprised at them changing from a well-supported commercial UNIX to Enterprise Linux, but I guess they had their reasons. There is no question that a Linux network is much cheaper to run than an Oracle/Solaris one. Since my college is a state college, they probably were looking to save money in any way.

We only operate Red Hat on our mainframes and in our Engineering labs. The student labs are all Windows XP or some type of iMac. The average student doesn't even experience Solaris or Red Hat unless he/she is a computer scientist or electronics engineer.


Red Hat does have good reputation of repairing bugs and security holes within 24 hours of their knowledge of them. Red Hat and the other enterprise linuces claim to support their releases with bug fixes and security patches for at least 10 years. I think that is pretty to close to MS, but I haven't thought it through. Windows XP is at end of life and it still has a larger market share than most "alternative" OS's (including Linux) out there.

I guess, I do agree with that "not-ready" feeling that comes from using Openoffice, GIMP, GNUCash and other open-source imitations of commercial things.

If I were to "flock" to anything, I think it would be to OS X not only for its large user base (well, OK, 6%) but for its regular support from its manufacturer. Linux, Red Hat and Oracle cannot offer the stability and reliability of Apple updates and hardware repairs. I don't know about Canonical but perhaps their commercial service is as good as Red Hat. Linux must do something about its 6-month release schedule. It means a completely new OS twice a year. I don't think Microsoft even rushes out service packs out that often.

I'm not a fan-boy of MS by any means, but I think OS X is the better deal in terms of stability and support (if you wanted an alternative).

 

[lehnerus2000]

Are you sure?

If I were to "flock" to anything, I think it would be to OS X not only for its large user base (well, OK, 6%) but for its regular support from its manufacturer. Linux, Red Hat and Oracle cannot offer the stability and reliability of Apple updates and hardware repairs. I don't know about Canonical but perhaps their commercial service is as good as Red Hat. Linux must do something about its 6-month release schedule. It means a completely new OS twice a year. I don't think Microsoft even rushes out service packs out that often.

I'm not a fan-boy of MS by any means, but I think OS X is the better deal in terms of stability and support (if you wanted an alternative).

Are you sure about that?

The whole Flashback debacle was caused by Apple not releasing an update for a Java exploit, one that had been patched in Linux distros and Windows for 6 months (according to several other sites I visit).
Older versions of OSX had Java installed by default.

The Linux servers only require security updates (the other updates are optional).

 

[rich4421972]

You are absolutely right. I am not sure about that,

but by and large, Macs do have regular commercial quality support and applications whereas many linuces (and their communities) do not. I think that my college switched to Red Hat because of their commercial support structure. Even FreeBSD (a major factor in OpenDarwin) has only one major commercial support option (iX systems).

I think you're right that Macs do not have the greatest support but they do have something. Regarding Linux servers: servers are just that--servers. A desktop system has much different requirements. This is why Wazzu ran Solaris 2.0 on their mainframes and electronics laboratories while running Novell Netware in their student labs.


Even though they are binary applications, Flash, Java, Adobe and MP3 are pretty much required by desktop users. If you are running Red Hat/ Oracle /SUSE on a desktop PC, you must add EPEL release (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux), livna and DAG. Most of the open source alternatives are simply not competitive yet and the Red Hat.Oracle/SUSE repositories do not include. That may be where OS X/Darwin is having its trouble.

I am not a fan-boy of either system, I just want to get my work done and go on vacation. Windows 8 is the first release of Windows to include a flash player, PDF reader in addition to the usual bevy of multimedia codecs. So, I think it is a little unfair to compare the newest generation of Windows-based systems to OpenDarwin which has never had a perfect drop-in for the things you say because FreeBSD never had them either.

Mac engineers have to reverse engineer every binary blob that Windows uses out of the box. I'd say that takes quite a while. I do not believe that Ubuntu moves any better than a commercial operation.

Windows systems only "need" security updates because they have their own PDF reader, flash player and java-like machine environment (.NET Framework).

So, I guess I'd still go to Mac If and only if I gave up on Windows. It's a little confusing to me to hear and talk about OS X because I only use it occasionally at school. But Windows and OS X work on radically different paradigms and I don't know enough to even talk too much about it.

6 months is not really significant for any reverse-engineering job. The CentOS project has been known to take over a year to release a new version of enterprise Linux and, even then, Red Hat sources are ALL open and there are no binary applications to repackage or reprogram.

 

[mart4494]

It all depends on what works for you and that of course is entirely dependant upon what you are going to use your laptop/desktop/etc for. If all I needed to do was access a few e-mails, some web browsing, letter writing, etc then no doubt one of the Linux distro's would do me just fine. So it's horses for courses and that varies according to the individual/organisation.

I won't be upgrading to Win8 as there are no benefits to do so. I have a perfectly good Win7 rig running a SSD for the programs and a spinner for the data. Slightly disappointed (or was) that MS decided to go for the Metro look which I simply do not like but others do like it. So it's a free country and it's a personal decision.

Jumping ship to the fruit company is a no go for me. It would cost several $$$'s to simply stand still as to what I have at present time. Agreed though they do make some nice looking kit but that's where it ends in my eyes. I know of more than one person that's had trouble with their Apple kit and it's usually cost some serious money to get the thing back on the straight and level. At least with MS based systems they are quick and relatively inexpensive to sort out.

 

[rich4421972]

. I have a perfectly good Win7 rig running a SSD for the programs and a spinner for the data. Slightly disappointed (or was) that MS decided to go for the Metro look which I simply do not like but others do like it. So it's a free country and it's a personal decision.

Jumping ship to the fruit company is a no go for me. It would cost several $$$'s to simply stand still as to what I have at present time. Agreed though they do make some nice looking kit but that's where it ends in my eyes.

I agree completely. I may have misunderstood the question. Apple is the only company that makes desktop computers and laptops that "look good" with the furniture and "good looks" are one of their primary goals in selling a computer. Their hardware (even though it is Intel-based) tends to be very shoddy and poorly put-together. iMacs have been known to break down completely within a year of their manufacture. As I said in a previous message, XP is still one of the most popular operating systems in the world. When I said I would "flock to Apple" I meant as a very last resort (IMO, it's better than nothing).

I thought it was extremely foolish of my college to save money by switching to Red Hat. Of course we are a research institution and Linux is, essentially, an experimental project. Solaris provides a very good research environment, too, and it is used in mission-critical applications all over the world. So I guess I was conflating a UNIX argument with one that was just an investigation of OS/X versus Windows 8.

 

[pparks1]

6 months is not really significant for any reverse-engineering job. The CentOS project has been known to take over a year to release a new version of enterprise Linux and, even then, Red Hat sources are ALL open and there are no binary applications to repackage or reprogram.

The CentOS project has never taken over a year to get their version of Enterprise Linux out after Red Hat. The only time CentOS was more than a year behind was the initial release of 2.1.

 

[mart4494]

I would like to hear more about your situation where "standing still" would cost more $$$ in terms of your setup. I think it is an interesting point I didn't understand that, I understand wanting to stay with Win7 or even Vista. I think many industries will be doing that, also.

Every user has individual requirements. Hence whilst I've always played around with Linux then it would be a no go until the likes of Adobe threw their weight behind it.

Regarding Apple, their stuff is simply overpriced and there's always an extortionate cost involved if you want to upgrade anything (assuming you can do it in the first place). All I would be doing is swapping my existing kit for something that looks pretty - although beauty is in the eyes.......

Would it improve my productivity?? - I very much doubt but in the meantime would be seriously out by several hundred $$$'s.

As an aside, Apple are IMO the original control freaks. At least with MS they do tend to allow latitude although that may of course all change with 8. We will see.

Hence, I'm not anti Win8. It's just not for me. If folks though feel it fits their requirements then go ahead.

As an aside, they interviewed outside the Apple store a guy who purchased a new iPhone. He'd camped outside for a couple of days so he could be the first. The reporter asked him what was new and he simply couldn't answer - his eyes were glazed over with excitement though. It was an Apple product so he just had to have the latest. His money so how he spends it was up to him I suppose. A go figure moment for me though!!

 

[FSeal]

As an aside, Apple are IMO the original control freaks. At least with MS they do tend to allow latitude although that may of course all change with 8. We will see.

Hence, I'm not anti Win8. It's just not for me. If folks though feel it fits their requirements then go ahead.

This is true, and it is true also that Steve Balmer has said that Microsoft is going to "Out Apple Apple". Which is frankly just frightening. We're all Windows fans because Microsoft is NOT Apple. But if Microsft /becomes/ apple? Hell might as well just buy Apple. The surface is going to be more expensive than the iPad, so I guess they are out Appling Apple already!

 

[mart4494]

This is true, and it is true also that Steve Balmer has said that Microsoft is going to "Out Apple Apple". Which is frankly just frightening. We're all Windows fans because Microsoft is NOT Apple. But if Microsft /becomes/ apple? Hell might as well just buy Apple. The surface is going to be more expensive than the iPad, so I guess they are out Appling Apple already!

If that is the case then Balmer is living in fools paradise. Apple is often bought as a fashion accessory and MS is simply not in that market. It's 'cool' supposedly to be seen with an Apple product.

 

[rich4421972]

The CentOS project has never taken over a year to get their version of Enterprise Linux out after Red Hat. The only time CentOS was more than a year behind was the initial release of 2.1.

Sorry. I do have to correct. You can check your facts at both distrowatch.com and at the project's website (as well as any other enterprise project website). Going From 5.7 to 6.0 took over a year to be released by CentOS. Scientific Linux had it in 6 months and PUIAS had it in an even shorter time because Princeton Computer Science is able to put an updated version of Enterprise Linux on their repositories almast as soon as the code is recompiled. ClarkConnect (ClearOS) tends to take even longer but that is likely due to their highly tweaked web interface.

The point I was trying to make is that, releasing a generic Enterprise Linux does not require reverse engineering--it requires recompiling and repackaging the freely available source code and removing patented branding from the end result.

In this way, Mac engineers have to create their own open version of the Adobe and Oracle binaries in order to use them as drop in applications. It's not a question of time, it's a question of what has to be done. CentOS aims (and achieves) for 100% compatibility with Enterprise Linux. No other Linux distro claims to do that (Oracle "unbreakable linux" even uses large portions of CentOS source code). That's why it takes them longer (although 6.3 did come out very quickly for them).

 

[pparks1]

The CentOS project has never taken over a year to get their version of Enterprise Linux out after Red Hat. The only time CentOS was more than a year behind was the initial release of 2.1.

Sorry. I do have to correct. You can check your facts at both distrowatch.com and at the project's website (as well as any other enterprise project website). Going From 5.7 to 6.0 took over a year to be released by CentOS. Scientific Linux had it in 6 months and PUIAS had it in an even shorter time because Princeton Computer Science is able to put an updated version of Enterprise Linux on their repositories almast as soon as the code is recompiled.

CentOS 5.7, (released on 9-13-2011) came from RHEL 5.7 (released on 7-21-2011). So, less than 60 days after RHEL released.

CentOS 6.0 (released on 7-10-2011) and came from RHEL 6.0 (released on 11-10-2010). So, around an 8 month delay after RH.

So, the absolute earliest CentOS could have released CentOS 6 would have been the same day that RedHat did, 11-10-2010).

Based on the above dates, one can see that it didn't take over 1 year to get from 5.7 to 6.0, actually 6.0 was out before 5.7 was released.

Remember, CentOS and RHEL releases don't go in numerical order. They both still pump out 5.x releases as well as 6.x releases. The 5.8 product for both CentOS and RHEL were released after 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2

 

[rich4421972]

The CentOS project has never taken over a year to get their version of Enterprise Linux out after Red Hat. The only time CentOS was more than a year behind was the initial release of 2.1.

CentOS 5.7, (released on 9-13-2011) came from RHEL 5.7 (released on 7-21-2011). So, less than 60 days after RHEL released.

CentOS 6.0 (released on 7-10-2011) and came from RHEL 6.0 (released on 11-10-2010). So, around an 8 month delay after RH.

So, the absolute earliest CentOS could have released CentOS 6 would have been the same day that RedHat did, 11-10-2010).

Based on the above dates, one can see that it didn't take over 1 year to get from 5.7 to 6.0, actually 6.0 was out before 5.7 was released.

Remember, CentOS and RHEL releases don't go in numerical order. They both still pump out 5.x releases as well as 6.x releases. The 5.8 product for both CentOS and RHEL were released after 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2

I am the one to be corrected!

I apologize and stand corrected. I do hope you liked my view on the Apple/Java situation, though.