This will be Microsofts biggest ever flop, far bigger than Vista.

[mart4494]

Love the guts of the OS though, certainly seems to be snappy and quick! =)

That's the tragedy of forcing the Metro UI on to desktop/ laptop users. It is simply an inappropriate interface. Fine for a 10 inch tablet or smartphone, if all you want to do is check your mail, surf the web in a minimal fashion, play a few games in apps or listen to a bit of music. It's not suitable for a desktop on which you want to get any REAL work done.

The new Windows 8 features, and I'm not talking about the Metro side of things, are actually very good. Less CPU use and it is faster than Win7.

Agree 101% over some of the new features. The speed is superior but that's without any programs being loaded on my PC but time spent (wasted) simply getting to where I am now with Win7 and it simply isn't worth it. Does MS really think that your day to day user to going to take the time out - I doubt it. Like Vista, they will take one look and have the UAC pop up every time they try and do something and demand a return as to how things were. IMO it wasn't MS that launched Win7. It was the demand made by the OEM's that forced their hand. On a marketing front I can see how MS are thinking. Get folks using the Metro UI and they will automatically want it on their phone as well. Also forget about selling software, there's more money in a monthly rental package plus of course the percentage spin off from all those downloaded apps. Apple could easily give their hardware away and live comfortably on the app download income.

I hope MS releases another consumer preview with the classic UI option but don't hold your breath. They (MS) insisted upon ribbons for the Office suite, hence you've still got many individuals and companies using Office 2003 or an open source alternative. Personally, I've had enough of the Metro test drive and have better things to do. Whether MS listens to what is being commented on I very much doubt but here's another not very positive article:-

Why Windows 8 could be the next Vista - IT Opinion from V3.co.uk

 

[HPDeskjet]

On a marketing front I can see how MS are thinking. Get folks using the Metro UI and they will automatically want it on their phone as well. Also forget about selling software, there's more money in a monthly rental package plus of course the percentage spin off from all those downloaded apps.

Microsoft lost the mobile phone battle years ago. They may like to think that people will want Metro on their 'phone but they are now far too late in joining the global mobile phone market. Windows Phone is already a flop, it's not taken off in the way MS thought that it would. It's been one big mess from the beginning and it has a bad name as far as most consumers are concerned. Their market share of the mobile phone market is about 4% globally, way below their own expectations for WinPhone Mango. Even Nokia's Windows Mobile Phones are selling in far fewer number than MS and Nokia expected and the Metro interface is never going to change that. It would be absurd of Microsoft to think that people are about to rush out and buy a Windows Mobile Phone because of the Metro UI.

I personally have a Windows Phone and think that Mango is a good OS. However, I do not want a hybrid Mango UI, Metro, on my desktop as it is an inappropriate interface for that environment in my opinion.

 

[mart4494]

It would be absurd of Microsoft to think that people are about to rush out and buy a Windows Mobile Phone because of the Metro UI.

I agree but there's a great deal of absurd thinking going around with marketing people these days. Who would have thought Nokia would have been in the position a few years back that they find themselves in now. Like them or hate them but you've got to hand it to Steve Jobs, he was a great marketing guy and drove Apple to where they are now. Things though just don't seem to be the same since Bill Gates took semi or was it permanent retirement. Anyway, we'll see what comes out of all of this.

 

[HPDeskjet]

It would be absurd of Microsoft to think that people are about to rush out and buy a Windows Mobile Phone because of the Metro UI.

I agree but there's a great deal of absurd thinking going around with marketing people these days. Who would have thought Nokia would have been in the position a few years back that they find themselves in now. Like them or hate them but you've got to hand it to Steve Jobs, he was a great marketing guy and drove Apple to where they are now. Things though just don't seem to be the same since Bill Gates took semi or was it permanent retirement. Anyway, we'll see what comes out of all of this.

Steve Ballmer wrecked Microsoft in my opinion due to his complete lack of vision. He forced the only creative person in the company, J Allard, to leave. Then it all went downhill. Who would have thought 10 years ago that Apple would be where it is now? Certainly nobody at Microsoft.

 

[kmint]

This is probably going to be the biggest fiasco in the history of computers. Even in the history of capitalism or thie history of human kind.

It i the biggest horror I have ever seen. I can't find proper adjectives, but grotesque, absurd, holy disaster, psychotic or schizophrenic are even short to describe this thing.

Who is responsable for Windows 8? Windows Phone 7 is sick, fugly and fail enough, but Windows phones are a little irrelevance while Windows is what the whole world uses and is necessary for the survival and daily functioning of billions of people.

 

[mart4494]

Steve Ballmer wrecked Microsoft in my opinion due to his complete lack of vision. He forced the only creative person in the company, J Allard, to leave. Then it all went downhill. Who would have thought 10 years ago that Apple would be where it is now? Certainly nobody at Microsoft.

Well I guess we will find out whether MS is living in a bubble and not taking constructive comments on board or whether they do listen.

 

[kmint]

It would be absurd of Microsoft to think that people are about to rush out and buy a Windows Mobile Phone because of the Metro UI.

I agree but there's a great deal of absurd thinking going around with marketing people these days. Who would have thought Nokia would have been in the position a few years back that they find themselves in now. Like them or hate them but you've got to hand it to Steve Jobs, he was a great marketing guy and drove Apple to where they are now. Things though just don't seem to be the same since Bill Gates took semi or was it permanent retirement. Anyway, we'll see what comes out of all of this.

The difference is simple. You see an Apple product and it is all logical, well designed and beautiful. I never used Apple because I am not rich and paying more for having less is out of my rational mind based on practicity.

But it is obvious and undeniable even for Apple haters that their products are superb and catch your eyes, while Microsoft has gone back to its root of disaster design and ideas. Windows 7 was a lost island of good design and good ideas if you managed to solve, change, forgive and forget the idiotic new big taskbar and start menu. The rest was good design and good ideas with excellent performance and improvements.

Now Microsoft has gone into acids and crack with this monster. The design alone is so horrendous, so crazy... combining the Metro ultra suffocating modern tiles crap with the traditional windows desktop is like having a schizophrenic system in front of you which is sometimes classic and sometimes modern depending what you click. Like filling Venice with modern crystal and steel buildings and changing all the traffic signals, laws and regulations in one night, not knowing where to find anything anymore and discovering that all the changes are total nonsense.

 

[Vivid Blue]

Come on guys it's really not that bad. IMO W8 isn't as radical as I imagined it would be, I had serious doubts from seeing the DP and wondered how I'd cope with an OS with a seemingly split personality, but the reality is if you're a desktop user you stay in the Desktop 90% of the time. Just personalise your Start Screen and see it as an App Launcher and it works fine. I really appreciate the upgrades to the Desktop side of things and don't want to go back to W7. I just wish I could get 8 to recognise my CD/DVD drive and I'd switch to it permanently.

I do think MS should give the option to enable the traditional Start Menu though. Most of these comments are negative and if they don't get Tech people on their side they're going to struggle to sell this OS, which would be a shame as it seems a nice upgrade from W7.

 

[HPDeskjet]

I do think MS should give the option to enable the traditional Start Menu though. Most of these comments are negative and if they don't get Tech people on their side they're going to struggle to sell this OS, which would be a shame as it seems a nice upgrade from W7.

I think the removal of the Start button from the desktop was deliberate. I'm sure Microsoft have removed it in Windows 8 CP to see what the reaction is from people using the OS on desktops/ laptops in the real world. I'm quite sure that it will be back on the final version of Windows 8 as they must already be terrified by the comments here and elsewhere regarding the matter. If not, they can kiss goodbye to any businesses buying Windows 8 and that will hit them where it really hurts. Their corporate portfolio of customers, many of whom still haven't bothered moving from XP to Windows 7. With Window 8 and Metro they have even less of an incentive to move away from XP.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all
Why don't we create a MARKET for this on BETFAIR -- I'll LAY GOOD ODDS that W8 will be a Winner

--- after you've got the preconceived ideas out of the way and don't try and imagine it's Windows 7 Plus you will actually LIKE IT.

I agree that some geeky souls who are on keyboards all day long and on mobile phones at night typing away might have trouble since they actually have to CHANGE what key strokes they enter.

You can make W8 incredibly slick -- you can get rid of 90% of the tiles if you just want to see a few apps -- and by selecting File Location you can then send the app as a short cut to your desktop - or the task bar or both.

I never did like having a cluttered desktop -- the Taskbar is a good idea - simple and quick.


Going over this whole thread I STILL can't understand what the fuss is about. Pretty well everyone I've shown it to LIKES it once you explain some of the quirks.

Remember also that it's NOT a finished product yet so there are BOUND to be some changes.

I've found after barely 2 days that going even back to W7 seems like going back 100 years --

AND it actually got a driver for the SONY MMC stick as well as the standard SD card in my built in dual reader -- W7 enterprise could only get the SD card part of the reader to work. !!!

Anyway lets make the BETFAIR market. I'll win I'm sure. !!

Cheers
jimbo

 

[mcquicker]

Again, the fundamental question for MS should be: What is our base user? Is it someone who only uses the PC to play games or is it the individual (like me) who spends most of his day behind the PC working - writing, editing and producing films, doing research, etc. In addition, my team does our accounting on the PC, we produce from books to magazines to web pages on the PC.

What we don't do is spend countless hours on FB or Twitter or playing games. To me and my group the PC is an incredible tool for work. It is not someone else's tool to sell me stuff. That is another reason I don't like the Metro interface because it is tied to Windows Live. I don't think it is coincidence that the first box in Metro is 'Store.' Keep it.

Most of the people I associate with are in my group. I would be surprised if they switched to something like Win 8 and its new Metro interface. And we are part of that base that have been working on PC since they first came out in 1983.

Give us speed and functionality and a reliable tool to work with - we are not interested in playing games or in buying third party products unless we make a particular choice to do so.

 

[HPDeskjet]

Give us speed and functionality and a reliable tool to work with - we are not interested in playing games or in buying third party products unless we make a particular choice to do so.

Here, here. What I don't need in the working environment is load of brightly coloured Metro start tiles that would look more in place on a Fisher Price toy computer.

 

[BillWindows]

You know what Deskjet you sound just like a guy I was talking to years ago when Windows first came out, he said he hated it and that Windows would never catch on. I'm pretty sure I've heard all the same comments every time MS has brought out a new Version of Windows, and guess what, over 90 % of people are using it.

 

[Burgurne]

Who needs the Metro. I am going back to the old days and work with keyboard shortcuts. Here are my favorites (there are a lot more): Try Win+X that a member posted earlier. It is really neat.


Desktop ---> Win+D
Metro ----> CTL+ESC
Charms ----> Win+C
Explorer ----> Win+E
Search ----> Win+F
Settings ----> Win+I
App Bar ----> Win+Z
Closing Apps ----> Windows + CTRL + TAB
System Programs ----> Win+X

Nice Wolfgang. Is there a shortcut for shutting down? What on earth is the quickest way to just shut-down the system?

Shut Down ---> Alt+F4

About speed and windows 8 vs windows 7. I have a spare SSD, and I installed windows 8, ran windows update and then timed boot and shut down times.
Then I did the same for Windows 7, installed, windows update, timed boot and shut down times.

Well, boot times are allmost the same (within 2 seconds) but shut down times windows 8 is about 5 seconds quicker.

I also ran PCmark Vantage, can you guess which had the best score? IT IS THE SAME!! (on my PC, Core i7 860@3,3Ghz, 8G ram, GTX580, Intel SSD 1. generation)

I think, that when W8 feels more speedy than Windows 7 it might be because of new installed OS with no installed programs or services. Granted there is a little difference in W8's farvour, but not so much as written in this thread. Maybe I will have to rethink this when Windows 8 has been filled up with programs, and has run for severel month as my main OS (windows 7) has. Maybe Windows 8 is better at keeping this "new install" speed?

The new restore functions in Windows 8 is great news though, but Metro interface? No, not for me. To me it looks like they changed it just because they can. Many people will like it, but very few people will do better with this tahn with ordinary desktop.

Why is it, that more and more programs, games and now also the OS itself on a PC MUST look as a phone or a consol, why can't it just look as a PC? Many games are going backwards on PC because the game also must fit into a crappy consolehardware, and only have some eyecandy topped up to please Nvidia and AMD. And now the OS is also a (poor) portable platform, because phone and desktop should look and feel "the same". Well, if everything should "feel" the same, then we would have pedals in our cars, so they would "feel" the same as when we take our bicycle!

 

[Mooly]

It's quite interesting comparing comments here with those on the W7 forum of 3 yrs ago when beta's were being run.

W8 really does seem to have an image problem at the moment. Wheras the W7 issues seemed more on the practicalities of installing specific progs etc, W8 is really being slated at the moment on the way it looks and interacts with the user. A lot of the W7 comment was favourable... most liked the way it worked.

This will be an interesting 12 months

 

[twdawson]

This will be the new xp and what I mean by that is people will just stick to windows 7, because there is no new or very little features in 8 that 7 does not have.
I have tried the cp and went back to 7, I also ran into some issues with certain software being a bit funny.

Windows 8 will be brilliant on a tablet but not on a desktop.

 

[mcquicker]

BillWindows: The reason people used/use Windows is because MS never forgot who they were designing the program for. If you remember, the first big hit on the PC was Lotus 1-2-3 in DOS OS. That was not a game, it was a tremendously effective application. Now, of course, the PC can do much more than it did back in the 80s. Yet, I don't know ANYONE who buys a PC solely to go in FB or Twitter, or simply to buy things. The reason most people spend money on a PC is for work. After spending the best part of 3 days on Win 8, I can't say that is the reasoning behind the Metro interface. You have a the Store app, then you have the Pictures app, then you have the Share app. . . give me a break.

My view is that unless the Metro/Desktop interfaces are interchangeable, as long as Win 8 is viewed as a bridge for tablets and mobile phones, the core base of PC users will not upgrade from Win 7, which is a reliable and fast OS.

 

[twdawson]

Could not agree more with previous poster, I will stick with 7 or just use osx.
Microsoft might have lost me with this one.

 

[HPDeskjet]

You know what Deskjet you sound just like a guy I was talking to years ago when Windows first came out, he said he hated it and that Windows would never catch on. I'm pretty sure I've heard all the same comments every time MS has brought out a new Version of Windows, and guess what, over 90 % of people are using it.

I'm not against Windows 8. I'm more than certain that the Metro UI will work exceptionally well on a tablet or mobile device. Of that I have no doubt. However, I am still not totally convinced that Metro, in its current form, is the correct interface for the desktop/ laptop environment. By the looks of the comments of other contributors here I am not alone in my opinion.

Surely, the whole point of a consumer preview is to give MS feedback, whether that be positive or negative. Microsoft will no doubt be following this and other forums to see what kind of discussions are going on. If you expect everybody here to act like Apple fanboi's and say that it's all wonderful and gorgeous then there is no point in MS releasing a consumer preview to the public. You will note that I have never said that the actual OS is no good, in fact quite the contrary. Windows 8 is an improvement on several levels over Windows 7, which I also tested. In fact I was early adopter of both Vista and Windows 7. I could never understand the negative reaction to Vista as I never had a bad experience with it. Windows 7 pre-releases were far more buggy than this CP, yet it was obvious that it was going to be a success from it's early days. Microsoft listened to their customers and made certain changes to Windows 7 before the final version was released. So, your assumption that I "sound just like a guy I was talking to years ago when Windows first came out" is somewhat unjustified in my opinion.

With a few tweaks to the UI interface for desktop users Windows 8 could be a great success for MS. I do very much hope that MS do listen to some of the more negative comments over Windows 8, take them onboard and make the few changes that could make Windows 8 as successful as Windows 7. To me that does not sound like someone with a luddite mentality.

 

[BillWindows]

If you dont know anyone who buys a PC for Facebook or Twitter or to buy things you cant get around much. Millions of people buy computers for just these things including games and emails and Voip etc. The problem for MS is that people are now buying tablets to do these things and guess whose tablets they're buying, you guessed it Apple.
People are also buying phones to do these things, and guess whose phones they're buying, you guessed it Apple and Android. The biggest problem for MS is that if all these young kids grow up using iPads and iPhones, guess what system they're going to use when they grow up.
This is a tough time for MS they have to keep up or lose market share, I personally think they are heading in the right direction, if not, I'm wrong and Microsoft is wrong and soon all you'll see is overpriced Apple computers. I hate Apple stuff, I build my own computers, and want to keep doing so, so I really hope MS gets this right.