MS to scrap Windows 8 (rumour)

Kernel_Sanders

securityguy wrote: »

minicomputers nearly IBM, .

laptops? Did what?

prowla

Lum wrote: »

Yes, I wrote a huge post about this ages ago:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4323561

Ah, and I commented in post #2 on that thread that none of those fixed the horrible flat monocolour square bordered UI.

I subsequently had a dalliance with WindowBlinds, but I didn't really want to pay $10 per PC to try and put back a feature which Microsoft decided to quietly remove after completion of the public Beta.

As far as Metro and its tiled apps goes, it's about as much use as the skin on a kipper.

prowla

securityguy wrote: »

Younger users are much less upset by having to use different applications in different contexts. So the great selling point of the Surface Pro, that you can take a full Windows experience and run it on a tablet, turns out to be a _lot_ less compelling than Microsoft's brainstrust (most of whom are not from the tablet generation) thought.

Well, I would say that it's not an age thing really; I'll happily use a variety of systems with different applications & interfaces. It's just that of them all, Windows 8 is probably the least pleasant environment; I used Windows 2 back in the 80s, and Windows 8 is suspiciously similar.

securityguy wrote: »

And in the situations where Microsoft do have a massive market advantage by owning the dominant application (Office, mostly) they have squandered that advantage by using it to prop up the Windows monopoly. A lot of enterprise desktops run Windows simply because they need to run Office, and if Microsoft understood that Office and its ecosystem (Sharepoint, Exchange) are their crown jewels, they'd be able to make vast amounts of money. For example, suppose Microsoft sold iOffice for iOS and Android at £200 a pop, £100 for students, talking to a custom version of Sharepoint that needed a £100 a pop CAL or to a cloud service that cost ten quid a month, applications included. They would have to buy scuba diving equipment to let them breathe in their offices rather drowning in money. But they won't do that, because the Office BU within Microsoft is still subordinate to Windows, and Office is a means to an end (selling Windows licenses).

The Windows monopoly is very fragile, because for a lot of productivity use tablets are starting to seriously pressurise desktops and desktop replacement cycles are now much, much longer. The Office monopoly is a lot stronger (for a start off, there's much less competition) but might not be strong enough to sell Surfaces. That's a sort of perfect storm for Microsoft: users start going to Android and iOS because they like the hardware, which forces them onto non-Office productivity solutions, which then makes them question why they're running Office on desktops. If you're old enough to remember how minicomputers nearly IBM, there parallels are quite interesting.

I agree that Office is Windows' killer app, and without it I wouldn't need Windows at all. However, I can run it on my iPad via a Citrix desktop which is available to me from a server, and also on a Linux box inside a dedicated Windows VM.

But, not content with messing up Windows, they've also Metro-ized the Office GUI, and in the process have (a) used up a heck off a lot of screen real estate on fripperies, and (b) made items and borders less easy to recognize. I don't know what happened to their design team, but it seems like they just gave up.

Steve-o

One of the "selling points" of Win8's Metro interface is its ease of use with a touch screen. That's great, for a mobile device. On my desktop machine I have a large monitor, which I don't want to sit near enough to that I can comfortably use it as a touch screen device. Add to that, I HATE having smudges or fingerprints on my desktop monitor's screen, and for that reason alone I would never use a touch screen as a desktop's monitor.

londonTiger

Steve-o wrote: »

One of the "selling points" of Win8's Metro interface is its ease of use with a touch screen. That's great, for a mobile device. On my desktop machine I have a large monitor, which I don't want to sit near enough to that I can comfortably use it as a touch screen device. Add to that, I HATE having smudges or fingerprints on my desktop monitor's screen, and for that reason alone I would never use a touch screen as a desktop's monitor.

it's just stupid to use touchscreen on a desktop computer - think of the shoulder strain from doing that. A mouse allows you to just move your wrist a couple of inches to move curser from one end to the next. Lifting your arm and pressing the screen 1ft away is a lot of work and your should will hurt after a few minutes doing that.

I think Microsoft banked on tablet convertables becomes the next big thing and built their OS around that. Convertables are a limited market - most people would rather have a proper computer at home and a tablet on the go. Few people want both in one device.

AlecEiffel

If you don't like metro, just tick the box that bypasses it and boots you straight to the desktop.

silverwhistle

I must admit, the talk of OS's leaves me quite cold. I had a ZX80, a windows 3.1 machine, and only changed to my current Vista laptop when I had physical problems I couldn't solve with the previous PC back in summer 2009 and needed a new one.

Although (or is it because?) I worked in IT I've got a cheap windows phone, bought because I needed some specific functionality. It suits me fine.

Windows 8 with touch screen functionality seems pointless unless I get myself a tablet. From where Im sat typing at the moment touching the screen would be a real pain..

I'm grateful for the informed comments here, but previously I've just gone for whatever is available on thr cheapy PCs I buy.

Jivesinger

prowla wrote: »

if Windows 9 stays flat and doesn't re-introduce Aero effects, then I'll be using Linux as my main OS.

My understanding is that one reason Aero was dropped was because it uses enough power to make a difference to battery life. I went straight from XP to Windows 8 so didn't miss Aero. Using a PC with Windows 7 more recently, I don't find Aero makes the PC more usable (unlike Metro apps which are fairly hopeless in their insistence on full screen layouts).

Johnmcl7

silverwhistle wrote: »

I must admit, the talk of OS's leaves me quite cold. I had a ZX80, a windows 3.1 machine, and only changed to my current Vista laptop when I had physical problems I couldn't solve with the previous PC back in summer 2009 and needed a new one.

Although (or is it because?) I worked in IT I've got a cheap windows phone, bought because I needed some specific functionality. It suits me fine.

Windows 8 with touch screen functionality seems pointless unless I get myself a tablet. From where Im sat typing at the moment touching the screen would be a real pain..

I'm grateful for the informed comments here, but previously I've just gone for whatever is available on thr cheapy PCs I buy.

You do not need a touch screen with Windows 8, it works just as well with a keyboard and mouse as Windows 7 did. There are two interfaces in Windows 8, the desktop mode (much the same as Windows 7 but with no start menu, still has the same desktop, taskbar and system tray) and the 'Modern' mode which is the touch screen interface. The Modern interface does not work well with a keyboard and mouse but there's simply no need to use it, you can use Windows 8 entirely in the desktop mode bar having to access the shutdown button with a menu on the right. There are third party applications which can add a start menu back in if you really want it, I didn't bother with the new start screen initially but now I have removed all the touch application shortcuts so only my applications are there it is handy as you get basically one click access to most of your applications.

Not only are all the keyboard shortcuts still available but as an IT person you'll probably appreciate the improvements they've made, the start menu is replaced by a handy power users menu which gives direct access to programs/features (for uninstalling software/features), command prompt, event viewer, disk management etc. which were most of the items I used the old start menu for but they're now available in one click.

There are various advantages to Windows 8 but in particular it's good on cheap PC's as it's well optimised for low end hardware and mechanical storage. It's surprisingly quick and responsive even on the older Atom processors which were more sluggish under Windows 7.

John

securityguy

londonTiger wrote: »

it's just stupid to use touchscreen on a desktop computer

Newton said that if he had seen further, it was because he had stood on the shoulders of giants. Computing's the opposite: we have the memory of goldfish. 1980s Usenet legend Henry Spencer said that those that did not understand Unix were condemned to reinvent it, badly, and the same applies over a wide range of software.

In the case of touch screens, the problems for general use were documented in the 1980s.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/gorilla-arm.html

The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early 1980s. It seems the designers of all those spiffy touch-menu systems failed to notice that humans aren't designed to hold their arms in front of their faces making small motions. After more than a very few selections, the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and oversized — the operator looks like a gorilla while using the touch screen and feels like one afterwards. This is now considered a classic cautionary tale to human-factors designers; “Remember the gorilla arm!” is shorthand for “How is this going to fly in real use?”.