as for phillipduran and people like him, they can keep climbing every soapbox, trying to keep things the same. but things will change regardless. and that's where entrepreneurs will make their niche market and business. for those that want the Windows 7 style start menu, they can buy those programs. for people that want to have OSX style launchers, they can buy those programs. or better yet, if you don't want to change, then don't upgrade. Windows 7 is still great so you can stay with what you're used to.
But you don't need to try to teach people that Windows 8 is bad because you want to hold on to what you have. And if it's your choice not to upgrade, there's no reason to try to tell people not to upgrade either. It's like when music CD's were dying and people were lambasting the poor quality of digital music, that uncompressed audio CDs had much better quality, etc. etc. that people shouldn't be moving to digital music. or when records went on to CD's, how CDs didn't have the nuance of records and poorer sound quality.
things move on. it's not your job to try to stop things. but yet there are those audiophiles that feel the need to go into every digital media forum and say how music has suffered because of the digital era all the time. as if they're complaining will somehow keep things from changing.
I know part of the reason why people are trying to keep things from moving forward is they feel like they are being forced to move forward. but there's nothing you can do about it. and it does kind of suck to have to upgrade when you don't want to . but just as some devices and software stopped being supported for Windows XP, forcing people to upgrade to Windows 7, it's happening again. but no one says you have to stay on the curve. I know plenty of people who haven't bought software in years, still working away on their Pentium III in Windows XP, using Office 97 or Office XP and that's perfectly fine.
as for how complex things are now... that's more a functionality of familiarity than anything. I'll use my Android/Windows 8 example again. I was lost at how to close a Windows Store app (a swipe down from the top edge of the screen). I had to google how to do it. But I was sitting on the toilet with my Android tablet, did my swipe to close the app, forgetting that I was on my Android tablet and not my Windows tablet. On Android, I had to do multiple steps just to close the app. But with the Windows version of the app, one quick swipe and it's closed. I now think the Android way of closing an app is kind of arcane and old-fashioned.
there are skills I used to have from my Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 days that are far harder and more complex than anything you can do in Windows 8 but they're obsolete at this point. I remember all the cool CLI stuff and toggles I'd do just to make an MP3 with my LAME encoder and other tools. Nowadays, programs like iTunes and Zune do everything better and faster.
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I and those who have some issues with the way the UI has been implemented is bashing Windows 8 and wishing it would fail. No one here is saying things should stay the same, that Windows 8 is bad, telling people not to upgrade, or trying and stop progress. You are utterly, utterly, imagining things if that's what you read from people's posts. Point out one instance of that.
No one who attacks my comments has ever discussed my points about the potential of the active tiles being used in a much more functional fashion, in a desktop environment. I've given countless examples, yet they all seem to fly over the heads of those who refuse to admit that things could be done differently in that respect as well and keep banging on about haters. You wonder why people keep repeating these things? Well, it's because you and others keep repeating your view of the world and never acknowledging that there are valid points being raised by others who have differing needs. And remember, all of the comments relate to the desktop PCs, mobile phones, tablets, TVs and similar devices.
show me where I wrote that you were bashing Windows 8 and wishing it to fail. I quoted my text. show me. in fact, I don't even remember you. what I wrote was that it was unnecessary and bordering on preachy for people to go into multiple threads and regurgitate arguments that they made. in fact, I knew which people would be joining this thread to regurgitate the same things. someone makes a new thread about how much they hate the new start screen. i can already imagine the usual suspects who will join that thread and also say how much they hate it.
I have never criticized anyone for tailoring their Windows 8 experience to suit their needs. show me where I said that. the closest I ever came to that was when people were talking about how to permanently disable windows 8 features through things like registry changes, and I answered why permanently gimp things? just don't use the features you don't like and tailor the experience to your needs. when you start mucking with things that you aren't sure of the systemic effects, it could lead to problems down the line that you never imagined were related. there are plenty of ways to tailor your experience without modifying system files.
show me where I ever wrote how much I love Windows 8 and that people should go buy it. you won't find a single post. I will say things I like. But you never see me going to every single hate thread and regurgitating things. In fact, if you follow my comments, it's usually a reply to a rant where they say something that's deceiving or they're complaining about something being missing that's actually there or something to that effect. I'm rarely proactive with my posts except when it's something I found out that might be helpful for people through my experiences like how to select multiple emails via swiping with the touch interface. it took me forever to figure that out.
and yet, I can see almost rote answers from the same people in multiple threads why they didn't like Windows 8. I won't call them out because that's just petty. but apparently, you felt strongly enough that I was referring to you (trust me, you'd be way down the list of the people I would first think of complaining about Windows 8).
but what do you people think will happen by standing on a soapbox? that someone of importance will hear you and make changes that you want? trust me, they already have heard everything that that's possible to hear and will take their own time to implement it at their own pace no matter how much it bothers you.
I know plenty that say that Windows Blue (or whatever the next Windows will be called) will revert back to being closer to Windows 7 and that their complaining will be heard. that the start menu will be coming back. But seriously, Microsoft sees the writing on the wall and it's not going back.
In fact, Microsoft has a limited window because you can as sure bet that Apple is moving in this direction and if they move faster than Microsoft hopes, it's fully game over for Microsoft because the community and following that Apple has built is extremely loyal. They grew up on iPods, moved on to iPads, and then starting buying Apple computers. Apple has slowly been adding gestures and iOS features to OSX. They just never figured Microsoft would be able to follow. Same thing for Google. Google has slowly aligning their ecosystem as well. And like anything, Windows 8 has warts. But it has a lot of good to it too. And the vision is very clear and it's a vision that's interesting and potentially exciting. It's an exciting time to be a hardware and software enthusiast. I love my iPad 2. I like my Android Tablet (though ICS has some problems that need to be fixed). And I love my Windows. Competition is a great thing and it's good for Microsoft to get into the game.
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