Windows 'Blue' will leave Microsoft customers seeing red

Reflecting on my expectations for Microsoft's forthcoming Windows "Blue," I'm reminded of a favorite "Deep Thought" by Jack Handey, from "Saturday Night Live." In this passage, instead of taking his little nephew to Disneyland, Handey takes him to a burned-out warehouse and tells him Disneyland has burned down:

He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke.
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Is Microsoft playing some kind of trick on us? Forgive the corniness, but the early scoop on Windows "Blue" has this tech analyst seeing red.

It's the customers, stupid
Why am I so indignant? I'm not going to say it; instead, I'll let a comment off Paul Thurrott's Windows Supersite about the new features do the talking. There, Grapemanca says:

But there's got to be much more than this, right? As a Desktop user who runs Win8 with Stardock's Start8 and ModernMix, I'm not sure I can see anything here that I'll even notice. We still can't boot directly to desktop. We still waste an amazing amount of space around the Modern [Metro] UI edges. We still can't see basic functions on a UI that is purportedly a graphic user interface. We still can't resize Modern apps to the dimensions that suit us. We're still forced to use a keyboard to maximize efficiency ... à la DOS. We still don't have a brand-new Windows that's maximized for the desktop. Talk about underwhelmed.​

We'll know soon enough if we're being led to Disneyland or a burned-out warehouse. If it's the latter, will it be too late to go back? If Microsoft really wants to show customers that it's listening, it needs to drop the secrecy immediately and spell out the changes it plans to make to address the complaints.
Otherwise, Microsoft risks making them so angry that by the time the company gives them what they want, they won't care anymore.

Windows 'Blue' will leave Microsoft customers seeing red | Microsoft Windows - InfoWorld

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[XweAponX]

I don't see ANY reduction in the amount of PCs that people dump at my house for me to fix! Plus I see a lot of them buying brand new BOXES, not Tablets, Notebooks, or Surfaces.

 

[pulsar68]

The difficulty is that of those who would still have bought a laptop over the past several months - quite a number have not done so - because of 8.

Again, I think this is simply not true. MS may have hinted that this is partially the cause, but I think it's just a PR stunt. Looking arrogant is the last thing they want to appear. If PC manufacturers need a sacrificial lamb to appease their investors, then they're going to start pointing the finger at MS. If MS disputes this, it will just look like a case of he said she said.

I have not found a single person in real life that feel strongly either way about windows 8. EVERYONE I know who has been in the market for a new laptop got a new laptop with windows 8. They don't care about the UI change. All they care about is it's got word processor and a few other legacy programs. When I ask them if they miss the start menu or button, most of them just gave me a "huh?" look. A few noticed that it's gone, and they don't care.

The only people I've found who feel strongly either way (for or against) are people on the internet. And I've learned not to trust what people say on the internet fully. Exaggeration seems to be people's favorite thing to do on the internet.

So, MS willing to take the blame for low PC sales has more to do with PR than anything else. They came too late to the game, and now they are paying for it.

And if you're referring to tech reviewers like mashable, don't bother. They all have been taken over by iFans. They will criticize everything that is non-apple.

For example, take a look at the following review of the device I currently have.

HP ENVY x2 does not inspire envy: REVIEW

I own the device. From the review, it is abundantly obvious that the reviewer spent about 30 seconds with the device with the preconceived notion that it sucked. Nothing is more telling than his description of the charging port on the tablet at the middle of the review. He claims that the tablet portion doesn't have a charging port. A bunch of us got on his case, and he finally corrected it.

When iOS came out with twitter integrated into the system, these same reviewers praised apple for such a brilliant idea. Yeah, making an already existing app part of the system is such a major upgrade to the OS...

Anyway, I think I've said everything I wanted to say. MS is being blamed for the sales drop of PC because it is the most obvious target. And MS is willing to take the blame because it's the only thing they can do. They don't have a choice. They have to take the blame, nevermind that PC sales took a nose dive long before windows 8 came out for reasons I've already explained in my previous posts.

Finally a smart comment.

I agree every words

 

[labeeman]

Boutique PC seller laughs all the way to the bank on the back of Windows 7 - Computerworld

 

[pulsar68]

Boutique PC seller laughs all the way to the bank on the back of Windows 7 - Computerworld

I've just bought a new laptop (Samsung Series 3) for a great price without OS and I'll install Windows 8 on it which run very well even on a "medium" hardware.

Anyway, that's incredible:

"After all, we still get requests for Windows XP." he said.

 

[vrosa]

I purchased Smart8 long ago but now a days I don't even install it. I got used to the new Start Menu and to me it is faster, all my main programs are either on the taskbar (to the left, old style, in the quick launch bar which I still install and find the best yet) or at two fast clicks away where I dont need any accuracy (left down corner, click, app tile click, done, very fast).

Completely agree. Uninstalled Smart8 some time ago once I'd learned the new start menu. Works good as is, IMO.

Not as good as we would like, but works !

 

[DavidY]

The Desktop UI and desktop PC is a dead and dying breed. THIS IS A FACT. This isn't disputable. This isn't the year 2002 where the desktop is the mainstream center of everything. The world moved onto the mobile form factor. Look at laptop shipments, look at tablet shipments, look at Windows 8. The writing has been written on the wall forever and some just REFUSE to acknowledge its existence. Go ahead, you can deny Windows 8, but you can't deny the facts that the world isn't internet based or will forever and stay Desktop UI based anymore.

I agree the desktop PC is dying, and many of those home users rushing out to buy tablets for "content consumption" don't need a desktop UI for most of what they do.

But in the workplace, or for people doing "content creation" at home, I don't see anything yet that will replace the desktop UI for years and years to come.

Not necessarily. If ms can come out with a metro version of office, I can really see myself using it.

Maybe not for you, but certainly for me, and I think many other people, it's key to be able to use two applications at once. It's not just the techie folk who this is important to either. Simple tasks like copying details from a travel booking (we get ours sent as a PDF) into a Calendar appointment suddenly become much harder when everything is full-screen.

 

[goodintentions]

I agree the desktop PC is dying, and many of those home users rushing out to buy tablets for "content consumption" don't need a desktop UI for most of what they do.

But in the workplace, or for people doing "content creation" at home, I don't see anything yet that will replace the desktop UI for years and years to come.

Not necessarily. If ms can come out with a metro version of office, I can really see myself using it.

Maybe not for you, but certainly for me, and I think many other people, it's key to be able to use two applications at once. It's not just the techie folk who this is important to either. Simple tasks like copying details from a travel booking (we get ours sent as a PDF) into a Calendar appointment suddenly become much harder when everything is full-screen.

Hence the split screen as well as the desktop option. There's that magic word again.

I don't know why people here keep talking as if we have no desktop. We have the option to either use full screen app or windowed apps in desktop. Tell me something.

Why do people hate option so much?

 

[DavidY]

Maybe not for you, but certainly for me, and I think many other people, it's key to be able to use two applications at once. It's not just the techie folk who this is important to either. Simple tasks like copying details from a travel booking (we get ours sent as a PDF) into a Calendar appointment suddenly become much harder when everything is full-screen.

Hence the split screen as well as the desktop option. There's that magic word again.

I don't know why people here keep talking as if we have no desktop. We have the option to either use full screen app or windowed apps in desktop. Tell me something.

Why do people hate option so much?

Options are good if they work. However I don't see any usable options yet in that area (not within Windows 8 anyway).

Split screen certainly doesn't work on the PCs I use most. My home laptop has the wrong resolution and my work laptop (albeit not on Windows 8 yet) doesn't have the right resolution either despite being quite recent hardware.

And from what I've seen of it on other PCs, the split screen is very inflexible when it is available, so nine times out of ten wouldn't let me see the details I need. For instance I often need to compare a few rows on wide tables in spreadsheets/ databases/ reports, so arrange my windows to split horizontally. The existing Windows 8 split can't do that. And that's before I get to the times where I need to see three or more applications at once.

We have the option to either use full screen app or windowed apps in desktop.

If people write more apps in Metro (which Microsoft must want and will presumably do with their own software), it's more likely that we'd need to see multiple Metro screens at the same time, so no, there won't be an option to choose windowed desktop.

The option many users need (but doesn't exist yet in Windows 8) is to be able to arrange all apps running on the computer into user-resizeable Windows, just like you've been able to do (before Windows 8 came along) in every version of Windows I've used since 3.1 .

I see it being done with a hot-key do show Metro apps in the Desktop, so people who prefer full screen could stay in that mode if they wanted without changing the full-screen look.

 

[Rickkins]

Yanno, we're all gonna find out soon enough. If ms decides to fix it properly: ie basically preinstall "classic shell" features, which has to be mindbogglingly easy, they will have appeased everyone, and 8 will be a runaway success.

If, for some inexplicable reason they do not, and frankly it's inconceivable that they wouldn't, then they will suffer a major flop, and surely heads will roll.

Either way, we'll know in about a month....

 

[goodintentions]

Split screen certainly doesn't work on the PCs I use most. My home laptop has the wrong resolution and my work laptop (albeit not on Windows 8 yet) doesn't have the right resolution either despite being quite recent hardware.

And from what I've seen of it on other PCs, the split screen is very inflexible when it is available, so nine times out of ten wouldn't let me see the details I need. For instance I often need to compare a few rows on wide tables in spreadsheets/ databases/ reports, so arrange my windows to split horizontally. The existing Windows 8 split can't do that. And that's before I get to the times where I need to see three or more applications at once.

You are absolutely right, of course, which is why you also have the option to run in desktop environment where you can have 2 windows side by side. Again, why do you talk like the desktop has been taken away from you completely? There's a tile that says desktop. You click on it and voila it looks like windows 7. Install classic shell and your PC will boot directly into desktop environment.

I've been griping about the current split screen ever since windows 8 came out. Windows 8.1 which we will get a taste of in June will give us the ability to do a split screen at any ratio we want. I can't wait.

If people write more apps in Metro (which Microsoft must want and will presumably do with their own software), it's more likely that we'd need to see multiple Metro screens at the same time, so no, there won't be an option to choose windowed desktop.

The option many users need (but doesn't exist yet in Windows 8) is to be able to arrange all apps running on the computer into user-resizeable Windows, just like you've been able to do (before Windows 8 came along) in every version of Windows I've used since 3.1 .

I see it being done with a hot-key do show Metro apps in the Desktop, so people who prefer full screen could stay in that mode if they wanted without changing the full-screen look.

This is not true at all. There are millions of apps already written to run in your desktop environment. No need to use metro apps at all. We all know the number of apps in the winstore are still ridiculously limited. But inside your desktop environment, you have millions and millions of apps to choose from. I don't see what the problem is.

I happen to be a fan of the metro interface. But I also realize that not everyone is like me. If you install classic shell, your desktop will be 99% like windows 7.