Windows Loses Some Users Despite the Arrival of Windows8.1

Microsoft launched 2 operating system versions in the last 12 months, but this hasn’t stopped the overall market share of its platform from losing a few points every 30 days.

According to market researcher Net Applications, Windows now stands at 90.66 percent, while Mac OS X comes second with 7.73 percent. Linux is third with only 1.61 percent.

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The difference between Windows and the other platforms is huge, but Microsoft’s operating system keeps losing points and this isn’t at all a good thing.

Only last month Windows declined from 90.81 percent to 90.66 percent, with the trend clearly showing a dropping market share for what it remains the number one operating system for desktop computers.

Windows started the year with a share of 91.71 percent, but gradually lost points as more users made the switch to other platforms.

Windows Loses Some Users Despite the Arrival of Windows 8.1

 

[justmetoday]

Hello justmetoday. Welcome to 8 Forums.

They do. If you want a pre built system you can go to a manufacturer that offers a configurator.

Look at your example Windows 8 is free, you have already paid for it in the price of your PC build, all the others they charge you an extra price for, now if they took off $50 - $100 for no OS (formatted only), then I would agree.

I also, think it is funny that they charge an extra $104 for the Windows 8.1 upgrade, which is a free update via the Windows stores. Well, it's not really funny.

 

[mdmd]

Depends on the manufacturer.
This offers free Windows 7, and a subtraction for Linux, also a subtraction for none.

 

[mdmd]

I also, think it is funny that they charge an extra $104 for the Windows 8.1 upgrade, which is a free update via the Windows stores.

It's not free if you don't have an OS. So they charge $104 for Windows 8.1. (not an upgrade)

 

[justmetoday]

Depends on the manufacturer.
This offers free Windows 7, and a subtraction for Linux, also a subtraction for none.

This is a better example, however most people buy from Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon etc. where these choices aren't an option. Most everyone I know, would not have a clue, which was my point. Even you had to do a little searching to come up with a better option. You can do almost anything with a custom build, but that is not the main stream choices. IMHO

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Wow. No surprise these big corps are able to get away with so much.

They really must start teaching this stuff in schools.

Your post seems to be vague. What exactly do you mean? Please expound.

 

[mdmd]

Depends on the manufacturer.
This offers free Windows 7, and a subtraction for Linux, also a subtraction for none.

This is a better example, however most people buy from Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon etc. where these choices aren't an option. Most everyone I know, would not have a clue, which was my point. Even you had to do a little searching to come up with a better option. You can do almost anything with a custom build, but that is not the main stream choices. IMHO

You're right, from your point of view. :thumb: ... but < > and this is typical of the software and hardware industry, the current for sale products are considered the best available today. You're not going to find Walmart or Best Buy selling machines with Windows XP on them. I think it is generally understood that a product offering is supposed to be better than something sold several years ago. It is very controversial considering the up and down systems like Vista or Windows ME that have surfaced. Still, I believe, it is the intent, whether or not they succeed, is to offer a better product, a.k.a. Windows 8+.

 

[MrBill]

The other thing you need to consider with the new system is the drivers. In my case, my Asus desktop supported windows 7 drivers, I had checked. Since I have several copies of Windows 7 (Microsoft Alumni get employee prices) I simply backed up Windows 8 and put on Windows 7. I will say that before I did that I ran Windows 8 for a couple of months and ran the Windows 8.1 beta and final release. My reasons for going back to seven were purely application oriented. I have some older computer games that struggled with Windows 8.x. I believe it was likely because of the advanced memory randomization Windows 8 security supports.

As far as the desktop goes, Windows 8.1 actually works pretty well. Some things are still goofy, like right clicking to find shutdown, and Microsoft removing the system image backup, but overall it's not a bad OS. If I had one complaint with it today, it would be how it gets flaky when running Windows 8.1 apps, at least on the desktop. I like the Facebook app, twitter and a few others. However, you open a few of them, go back to the desktop, came back in an hour and your machine isn't sleeping. So as a rule I don't run the apps. So between that, and my older games, Windows 8 just isn't for my desktop.

 

[mdmd]

The other thing you need to consider with the new system is the drivers.............you open a few of them, go back to the desktop, came back in an hour and your machine isn't sleeping. So as a rule I don't run the apps. So between that, and my older games, Windows 8 just isn't for my desktop.

This is very true. I can see this as a real problem for driver coders and companies that need drivers for their products. It's difficult and expensive to keep up. On the other hand, there are products out there that have not upgraded their drivers for years.

It was my problem with Microsoft technologies. My certificate of MCSE was always evolving and always required spending thousands of dollars on additional training, books, classes etc... so I gave up on it.

As far as sleeping, there is a huge thread about this, > ... not read most of it,
but my solution is to press sleep (the sleep button, if you have one)
on the keyboard when I walk away from the desktop. I do this all day. It sleeps peacefully.

 

[fafhrd]

I have a laptop that sleeps when I close the lid. Never fails.

There's another way to shut down/sleep/switch user/sign out/restart etc., that not a lot of folk mention. It is not really worth mentioning, it is really naff.

Click the bottom far right taskbar or press :winkey:+D to show the desktop, then Alt F4 to bring up the shutdown dialog, and select your poison.

The Shut Down Windows dialog is one of the worst implemented dialog boxes I have ever seen in Windows.


"What do you want the computer to do?" - it asks with the W underlined, which is a Windows convention that usually means that either pressing W or Alt+W will do something, perhaps open the drop down list in this case. It does nothing.

Switch user, Sign out, Sleep and Shut down all start with S, and only Restart begins with a different letter, R.
Pressing R selects Restart and S cycles between all the S choices. The arrow keys take you between the bottom and top choices by repeated pressing. Tedious and repetitive, and not intuitive to old hands with Windows. Home and Pg up keys take you to Switch User and Pg dn and End keys take you to Restart. The list is not even in alphabetical order.

The other choice is the bottom left right click to bring up the WinX menu - which is meant to be mouse clicked for the available choices.

If the WinX menu is arrived at by pressing :winkey:+X, the keyboard shortcut letters for the menu choices are underlined.

I think that's actually well thought out and intelligent, unlike the Shutdown dialog.
/rant

 

[whs]

Depends on the manufacturer.
This offers free Windows 7, and a subtraction for Linux, also a subtraction for none.

View attachment 31971

The minus $98 for none is excellent. I would install Mint Mate which I like more than Ubuntu.

 

[lehnerus2000]

The minus $98 for none is excellent. I would install Mint Mate which I like more than Ubuntu.

Agreed.

Linux Mint 16 MATE RC has just been released.
It has a quick boot (~15s - 20s) and has low resource usage (~350 MB RAM, ~3.8 GB HDD space) on my PC.

The only issue I've noticed is the main menu is slow to open the very first time you use it in a session.

 

[Lee]

Not quite sure what you mean here.

NOBODY is forcing you to run Windows on your computer.
............

Whether you agree or not MS is a global monopoly. No I do not have a choice as Apple is too expensive and Linux will not run most of my software. I am stuck with windows. Don't get me wrong; I have been using and happily so, windows since win 95. The issue here is that MS has removed our ability of choice. It started with win 7 when we no longer could choose classic menus. MS forced us to accept changes irrespective of whether it made life more difficult. An example being the Ribbon
interface. What will it cost MS to just give us the choice of choosing to have classic menus etc?

I also have a question regarding Metro. I live in Africa and we pay internet by kbs used and it is expensive. I noticed that my win 8 laptop is using a lot of kbs. Although I have bypassed Metro with classic shell. Does Metro continue to run in the background?

Virtual Box is free as is VMWare Player, thus you can run just about any OS you want other then iMac's OS X. . .VM's can be your friend. . . . . .BTW what is metro. . .

 

[MrBill]

I appreciate the replies on the Windows sleep issue. Truth be told, I'm too lazy to hit the buttons. Well, that and I get little distracted. My desktop was Windows 8. I also work from home as a developer/IT manager and have my work laptop, dual screen system setup beside it. This allows me time to play on my personal computer when there is a lull in the workday. That being said, when work gets busy I'll ignore my desktop and at the end of the workday simply walk away. Thus the "laziness" factor.

Irregardless though, this points to something going on with Modern UI apps and the desktop that is stopping the PC from sleeping. I'm not a hater, so I'm not going to say throw out the Modern UI apps if you are running a desktop or laptop. I'm simply saying the "Metro" apps task switch/multi-task differently from desktop applications. It appears Microsoft has some sort of glitch between the two environments they need to tighten up.

 

[Tepid]

Not quite sure what you mean here.

NOBODY is forcing you to run Windows on your computer.
............

Whether you agree or not MS is a global monopoly. No I do not have a choice as Apple is too expensive and Linux will not run most of my software. I am stuck with windows. Don't get me wrong; I have been using and happily so, windows since win 95. The issue here is that MS has removed our ability of choice. It started with win 7 when we no longer could choose classic menus. MS forced us to accept changes irrespective of whether it made life more difficult. An example being the Ribbon
interface. What will it cost MS to just give us the choice of choosing to have classic menus etc?

I also have a question regarding Metro. I live in Africa and we pay internet by kbs used and it is expensive. I noticed that my win 8 laptop is using a lot of kbs. Although I have bypassed Metro with classic shell. Does Metro continue to run in the background?

MS is not a monopoly,. which implies you have no choice, Single Payer Health Care/Socialized Medicine, that IS a monopoly.

You do have a choice, if Apple and Linux do not work for you, You have Chrome OS, wooppss, sorry, may not work either for your needs. Can't blame the MS cause they are the only game in town when no one else is willing to put anything comparable out there.
that is like saying Apples are a monopoly, no other fruit is allowed to be an apple, dang monopolistic Mother Nature, curse you.

No one is stopping you or anyone else from building a New OS and getting it out there.
If you nor anyone else is willing to build something to compete with Windows, you can't complain about it.

As for Metro Apps, yes, many can run in the background, you may be able to stop them but going to Change PC Settings and turnign them off. But I have not search for where to turn them off at.

 

[mcnulty]

I don't know if Microsoft is legally a monopoly or not, and I don't care. I just know that realistically they're the only option available to about 95% of computer users.

I still don't know why people who dislike Windows 8 are supposed to simply shut up. I defended and supported Vista back in the day because I thought that despite the initial problems it would payoff immensely for the Windows platform, as it was indeed eventually. I think I have the same right to express an opinion now that I just can't see any value at all for the user in the direction that Microsoft is headed with Windows 8.

 

[whs]

That is very well said.

 

[Lee]

I don't know if Microsoft is legally a monopoly or not, and I don't care. I just know that realistically they're the only option available to about 95% of computer users.

I still don't know why people who dislike Windows 8 are supposed to simply shut up. I defended and supported Vista back in the day because I thought that despite the initial problems it would payoff immensely for the Windows platform, as it was indeed eventually. I think I have the same right to express an opinion now that I just can't see any value at all for the user in the direction that Microsoft is headed with Windows 8.

Where inthis thread has anyone told you to shut up, and if they had they probably got a shot across the bow. . .

 

[whs]

Yeah right Lee. Remember the heated discussions we had during the spring - especially with the guys from down under. Nobody (with reasonable arguments) was shut down - though we lost a couple of guys that got too personal.

 

[Lee]

Yeah right Lee. Remember the heated discussions we had during the spring - especially with the guys from down under. Nobody (with reasonable arguments) was shut down - though we lost a couple of guys that got too personal.

HI WHS wasn't talking about last spring, was talking about this thread, and nothing else. . .