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

[PaulGo]

I tried the release preview and although it is a bit cleaned up, I still dislike Windows 8. I tried it for several hours but the interface on a PC is just something I do not enjoy. My son has a Mac and I can easily go and use his computer without any problems although I regularly use Windows 7, but every time I uses Windows 8 I just don't feel comfortable. This is one OS that I will skip. The only other Windows that I did not purchase was Windows ME.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Is this still the largest non-sticky thread on this site?

Egads, MS.

 

[legacy7955]

Is this still the largest non-sticky thread on this site?

Egads, MS.

The absolutely STUPID thing about the main issues is that all the have to simply do is give the customers a choice. It would clear up 99% of the general complaints, yet they REFUSE. This is bad business when you absolutely do NOT listen to the wishes ( completely reasonable ones at that) of the consumer. It tends to put companies out of business in short order.

 

[HPDeskjet]

You are correct. Why Microsoft's new ideology of 'one size fits all' is being rammed down our throats deep throat style is astonishing. It is patently obvious that Windows 8 is a tablet operating system and not a desktop one. Apple are clever enough to make the distinction between tablet and desktop with OS X Lion and iOS 5. This big brother approach with Windows 8 is going to cost Microsoft very dearly I'm afraid.

 

[Vince53]

Legacy, I share your bewilderment. It is so simple to include the Start Button and an option to bypass the Metro Interface that I cannot understand Microsoft's thinking.

 

[cluberti]

Probably because Microsoft is a software company, and expects most folks (consumer-level) to get Windows 8 with a new PC or laptop or tablet, which will be Windows 8 ready (multi-touchpad, touch device, all-in-one, etc). Windows 8 is indeed designed more with touch in mind, but the expectation is that most (not all, but most) people who end up with it long-term will have touch devices (whether that be a touch screen or a touch pad designed for it, etc).

It's amazing the hate I hear about how Windows 8 doesn't work well in a traditional keyboard/mouse environment, but it does work well with touch. No sh*t! - laptops have outsold desktops since ~2008, and tablets (iPads, mostly) have outsold most OEM's PC sales for the last 2 years. Microsoft is a software company, and the OEMs (and Microsoft too, I'd wager) want to get in on that market, including small mobile devices like phones up to the tablet and laptop devices.

I don't plan on running Windows 8 on my old PC either, but I do run it on a tablet and it really is better than Windows 7 on the device. I don't think PCs will go away, just like the mainframe didn't go away after the explosion of the PC, but the desktop PC has a bulls-eye on it, and it isn't even Microsoft's doing - consumers have voted with their wallets, and they want laptops and tablets far more than they want (or need) desktop PCs. What do you think Microsoft is going to do? Stick around and miss out on that? No, they'd be foolish not to make software for the devices consumers are buying (and their shareholders would crucify them for being as stubborn as some of us are too).

Whether we like it or not, desktop users are going to be the past, and we either get used to that and move to more modern touch devices in the future, or we switch away from Microsoft to something like Linux or BSD - not Apple, as they've been down the laptop/tablet/phone road for awhile now, and if they kill the Mac Pro, there'll be no turning back there either.

 

[SIW2]

I am afraid the real reason is MS don't want to give the consumer that choice.

They could do it - but they won't.

It is simple - give people a choice and many will not use Metro and will not be drawn into the MS clouds.

Don't give them a choice, and the average user will be easily led to where MS wants them.

That is it in a nutshell.

 

[ThaiAm]

I can't imagine a company spending the time and effort to train people to use Windows8, so suspect that Microsoft is smart enough to know that as well. So the needed steps to success includes getting as many people to "learn Win8" on their own as possible and at some point in time they will use thier self gained knowledge to get their employers to implement Windows 8.

By the time that happens the guinea herd will be well down the path of doing the same thing with Windows 10.

 

[cluberti]

Note this is how previous versions of Windows originally found their way into the desktop, and ultimately to the server backend. Microsoft isn't naive here, and it's not their first time pushing in "from the consumer". I don't think it'll fail either, as writing metro-style apps is actually not that hard at all and does give some cost savings to developers. Again, how long it takes to catch on is one thing, but it *will* catch on - Microsoft is forcing that, and it makes business sense (and system stability and platform compatibility across phone, PC/device, and xbox as well). This is business, pure and simple, and this is where the money is going to be. As a for-profit public company, it's not surprising they're starting in earnest down the path.

 

[Colonel Travis]

Whether we like it or not, desktop users are going to be the past, and we either get used to that and move to more modern touch devices in the future, or we switch away from Microsoft to something like Linux or BSD - not Apple, as they've been down the laptop/tablet/phone road for awhile now, and if they kill the Mac Pro, there'll be no turning back there either.

Whether you like it or not, there will be 2 billion PCs in use around the world in a few years. The rate of PCs sold is going down but the total use is not. It's the exact opposite. So you can have your own future as much as you want, but until 1/3rd of the entire planet joins you, you'll have to grasp that:

1.) Not everyone wants to do all their work on a device.
2.) Not everyone can do their work on a device. You can watch Avatar on a phone but you can't make Avatar on a phone. You can look up the weather forecast on a tablet but you can't program weather forecasting models on a tablet. You can't even do that with a desktop. You need a supercomputer.

I've got my smartphone, I've got my tablet and I've got my laptop and I've got my desktop. They all serve a unique function. Just because you don't know what that function is, or care to use it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The desktop is an incredibly powerful instrument. It's not the only instrument but if you think it's going the way of the mainframe any time soon you're nuts. There are too many people using them right now for too many things. Mainframes were expensive, huge and rare. PCs are cheap, small and all over the place. So when a significant chunk of Windows PC users say they're not a fan of 8, to just essentially blow them off like you and others have is not the best way to look at this. You are looking too far down the road. MS is doing the exact same thing and I don't think it's a smart business strategy for a company so heavily invested in the PC side of computing. Yes, the future is not the desktop. But the present is. So will next year and the year after that. I don't know when it will not be like that, but I can assure you that by the time we are there, all these tablets as we know them now will be looked at with the same kind of ridicule heaped on desktops - probably worse because things are evolving so much faster and splintering into new directions than the old straight line Mainframe------->PC.

 

[legacy7955]

Probably because Microsoft is a software company, and expects most folks (consumer-level) to get Windows 8 with a new PC or laptop or tablet, which will be Windows 8 ready (multi-touchpad, touch device, all-in-one, etc). Windows 8 is indeed designed more with touch in mind, but the expectation is that most (not all, but most) people who end up with it long-term will have touch devices (whether that be a touch screen or a touch pad designed for it, etc).

It's amazing the hate I hear about how Windows 8 doesn't work well in a traditional keyboard/mouse environment, but it does work well with touch. No sh*t! - laptops have outsold desktops since ~2008, and tablets (iPads, mostly) have outsold most OEM's PC sales for the last 2 years. Microsoft is a software company, and the OEMs (and Microsoft too, I'd wager) want to get in on that market, including small mobile devices like phones up to the tablet and laptop devices.

I don't plan on running Windows 8 on my old PC either, but I do run it on a tablet and it really is better than Windows 7 on the device. I don't think PCs will go away, just like the mainframe didn't go away after the explosion of the PC, but the desktop PC has a bulls-eye on it, and it isn't even Microsoft's doing - consumers have voted with their wallets, and they want laptops and tablets far more than they want (or need) desktop PCs. What do you think Microsoft is going to do? Stick around and miss out on that? No, they'd be foolish not to make software for the devices consumers are buying (and their shareholders would crucify them for being as stubborn as some of us are too).

Whether we like it or not, desktop users are going to be the past, and we either get used to that and move to more modern touch devices in the future, or we switch away from Microsoft to something like Linux or BSD - not Apple, as they've been down the laptop/tablet/phone road for awhile now, and if they kill the Mac Pro, there'll be no turning back there either.

I don't believe that the sales of desktops are in that much danger of becoming insignificant, I do believe that the consulting agencies that M$ hires are telling them this .

There will ALWAYS be a place for the traditional desktop especially in enterprise environments, and yes there will always be plenty of power users and gamers too. Perhaps in a century that may not be the case but for the near term future it most certainly is the case. You can't replace a big monitor or intense processor with any laptop or tablet.

I think another aspect is that laptops and tablets are less able to be upgraded without buying new which our disposable economy hates. You can easily update and upgrade a desktop and continuing using it. Not so with many laptops and certainly tablets. Of course the lap top and tablets break sooner and easier too.

Then there is the touch debacle....the fact is that until some as yet uninvented interface is invented for humans the keyboard will be the standard for intense input of data.

I like change but I can tell you I will never allow any implants or related devices that are electronic to be placed in my bod. Period. It goes against every understanding of natural law I know.

 

[Corringdon]

Windows 7 is great. Windows 8 is an appalling OS with virtually no thought at all given to the millions of desktop PC users. When support for W7 expires I will be buying a Mac.

 

[gazz9496]

some misconceptions about the os i noticed amoung the many posts, logging in for example doesn't require an active internet connection you can do that while offline with the same user name and password.

The actual os is great at it's core, it's the sodden ui thats a mess lets not get things confused, it uses hardware better it uses less resources it pretty much does everything better under the surface of what we see, but the ui again is lacking on the desktop, looks great and runs great on tablets utterly useless for desktops.

I like change but I can tell you I will never allow any implants or related devices that are electronic to be placed in my bod. Period. It goes against every understanding of natural law I know.

see now that i wouldn't mind, i'd actually take some screwey implant over metro any day of the week.

it's not that i dislike metro i just find it somewhat clunky and well to chunky, the colour scheme is fine i guess not flashy but simple which can be nice as well i mean i use a fairly bland desktop background anyway i like it simple but something irks me about the metro ui, it's great for touchscreen and thats where the problem for desktop users comes into play....just how many touchscreens are there at desktop computers right this minute around the world? this ui won't work without touchscreen for extended use but at the same time be annoying to have to change how you sit at your computer just to have a touch screen and this os is insane to expect from any company.

just make metro an option on the desktop version and have the windows 7 ui as the other option but tweaked to be more suitable for windows 8.

 

[paarkhi]

just make metro an option on the desktop version and have the windows 7 ui as the other option but tweaked to be more suitable for windows 8.

Which is not going to happen and hence the failure

 

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Whether we like it or not, desktop users are going to be the past, and we either get used to that and move to more modern touch devices in the future, or we switch away from Microsoft to something like Linux or BSD - not Apple, as they've been down the laptop/tablet/phone road for awhile now, and if they kill the Mac Pro, there'll be no turning back there either.

Whether you like it or not, there will be 2 billion PCs in use around the world in a few years. The rate of PCs sold is going down but the total use is not. It's the exact opposite. So you can have your own future as much as you want, but until 1/3rd of the entire planet joins you, you'll have to grasp that:

1.) Not everyone wants to do all their work on a device.
2.) Not everyone can do their work on a device. You can watch Avatar on a phone but you can't make Avatar on a phone. You can look up the weather forecast on a tablet but you can't program weather forecasting models on a tablet. You can't even do that with a desktop. You need a supercomputer.

I've got my smartphone, I've got my tablet and I've got my laptop and I've got my desktop. They all serve a unique function. Just because you don't know what that function is, or care to use it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The desktop is an incredibly powerful instrument. It's not the only instrument but if you think it's going the way of the mainframe any time soon you're nuts. There are too many people using them right now for too many things. Mainframes were expensive, huge and rare. PCs are cheap, small and all over the place. So when a significant chunk of Windows PC users say they're not a fan of 8, to just essentially blow them off like you and others have is not the best way to look at this. You are looking too far down the road. MS is doing the exact same thing and I don't think it's a smart business strategy for a company so heavily invested in the PC side of computing. Yes, the future is not the desktop. But the present is. So will next year and the year after that. I don't know when it will not be like that, but I can assure you that by the time we are there, all these tablets as we know them now will be looked at with the same kind of ridicule heaped on desktops - probably worse because things are evolving so much faster and splintering into new directions than the old straight line Mainframe------->PC.

Well put, colonel.

While I can see how MS are eager to kill two birds with one stone (or OS if you like) they do make it incredibly awkward for those not familiar with any of the newer toys.
The net result looking more and more as if you're running a tablet OS with a hidden desktop OS under the bonnet with all the keys to access it thrown away.

Should they have revamped W7 and added all the apps needed to talk to the tablet/smartphone/etc. world and leave the user the choice to use either or both as they see fit, I doubt anyone would have objected much if at all.
As it stands W8 as a desktop OS is pretty useless by W7's standards.
Worse still, I can't see for the life of me what tablet etc. users are going to do with the desktop part of W8 either...


IMHO we, the desktop people , were very pleased to see W7 (I myself like no doubt many others was used to the server version already so no surprise there) as we could clearly see it was going in the right direction.

Everything was made easy. You no longer needed to be an expert to hook up a couple of PCs, add a printer or whatever. It was made foolproof to the point I often wondered how many sysadmins had lost their job since its advent....
Note how I wrote foolproof which doesn't mean W7 is, or should one use the past tense, perfect. It isn't.

So we, the desktop people again, expected an improved version of W7 for our next OS. It did not need all that much but it would have been nice to have these improvements nonetheless.

Enter W8, the next level of the W7 OS. Or so we thought....
I vividly remember my first reaction after first installing it. It was one of utter disbelief. Shock even.

For a moment I thought I'd somehow installed the wrong OS. I still feel the same today........................

Anyone else feeling the same way? No?

Cheers,

 

[Vince53]

When my friend Cluberti stated that desktops users will be a thing of the past, I think he meant that desktop computers will hold a steadily-shrinking percentage of computers. Laptops, tablets, netbooks, smartphones, etc., already make up far more than half of all computers in use.

And as my friend Colonel Travis points out, there will still be enough desktop users left for them to be a major sector.

 

[HPDeskjet]

As far as I am aware, Microsoft are holding back the final look of the desktop version of Windows 8. That's according to CNet in any case. That said, they've had a lot to take on board the last few months feedback wise. Windows 8 is a tablet OS, no business will bother with it, desktop users seem to overwhelmingly dislike it and Apple have already cornered the entire tablet market. Who are you going to listen to Microsoft? Your customers or the Widows 8 fanbois within Microsoft who are determined to ram this touchy feely one size fits all OS down everyones throats? I find it astonishing that Microsoft have not learned from their Vista blunder. I still stand by my original statement "this will be Microsoft's biggest ever flop, far bigger than Vista." There is still so much work to be done on it to make it worthwhile for your average user to even consider updating to it.

 

[rcr8]

win 8 is great, new and fresh created with touch in mine.a wide open door for innovation..

 

[Vince53]

The famous philosopher HPDeskjet states: "Windows 8 is a tablet OS, no business will bother with it..." Man, that's a valid point.

Although Windows 7 is now the most popular OS on the internet, Windows XP is still the most popular OS, because many older office computers do not go onto the web a lot. To put it bluntly, XP pretty well does whatever a business wants.

Now, the famous philosopher Vince (that's me) has been saying for a couple of years "If you think MS is having a hard time killing off Windows XP, wait until they try to kill off Windows 7." MS might have faced reality: they can't produce anything at this time that is far superior to 7 on the desktop. So they've gone in a different direction. They're going after the touchscreen devices, and conceding defeat on the desktop.

 

[HPDeskjet]

The famous philosopher HPDeskjet states: "Windows 8 is a tablet OS, no business will bother with it..." Man, that's a valid point.


Although Windows 7 is now the most popular OS on the internet, Windows XP is still the most popular OS, because many older office computers do not go onto the web a lot. To put it bluntly, XP pretty well does whatever a business wants.

Now, the famous philosopher Vince (that's me) has been saying for a couple of years "If you think MS is having a hard time killing off Windows XP, wait until they try to kill off Windows 7." MS might have faced reality: they can't produce anything at this time that is far superior to 7 on the desktop. So they've gone in a different direction. They're going after the touchscreen devices, and conceding defeat on the desktop.

But the whole point is that they do not have to concede defeat on the desktop front. The desktop operating system is what they are actually very good at. As in Developer Preview, just bring back the option to disable Metro in the desktop and you'll find most people will suddenly start liking Windows 8 a lot more. No need to strip out Metro, just bring back the option. The Metro interface is an extra layer I have no need for on my desktop. I would use it on a tablet but it's proving highly annoying for most using Windows 8 on their desktop PC's. It has nothing to do with being a Luddite, as many here seem to accuse non-Metro lovers as being.