MS to scrap Windows 8 (rumour)

jackieblack

Lum wrote: »

It's the normal cycle for Microsoft OSs in general. XP was the exception, due to a combination of Vista being both delayed and also badly received.

Win2.1 - 1988
Win3.0 - 1990
Win3.1 - 1993
Win95 - 1995
Win98 - 1998
Win98SE - 1999
WinME - 2000 (Anyone who moans about Vista should be made to use this for a month!)
WinXP - 2002

My father, a total computing novice and in his early 60s at the time, bought his first PC in 2001. Windows ME.
When this 'died' (2008/2009?) he bought a new PC, running Vista :rotfl:

Now in his mid 70s he's contemplating a new laptop - I've suggested he waits a while, I don't think I could cope with him ringing me every time he has a query/problem with Windows 8 :eek:

ThemeOne

Windows 8 is perfectly fine, and faster than 7 - just don't *ever* use any of the Metro apps, or the start screen, or the new start button (which takes you to the start screen).

There are lots of articles on how to avoid all these online. But the average paying customer doesn't want to have to google articles and follow instructions before having a usable system, and I think *that* was Microsoft's mistake.

As a previous post said, Office is now one of the main compelling reasons to use Windows, yet for basic use Office online can be used from any OS, and it'll be interesting to see how far MS develops this.

prowla

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.

Yes, the health and safety aspects, including the effect on your eyes if being too close to the the screen, and the effects of holding your arm up and stretching forward to touch the screen are just things waiting for lawsuits.

prowla

Jivesinger wrote: »

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).

Well, even the textured window borders of XP are better than Windows 8's scheme, which looks like it was designed in a kindergarten.

prowla

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

You do not need a touch screen with Windows 8, it works just as well with a keyboard and mouse as Windows 7 did.

In Windows 8 there are a couple of times when the touch screen interface kicks in even if you've not got a touch screen:
1. If you insert a disc you get a metro dialog to "Tap here".
2. Occasionally you get a black panel with an orange arrow on it at the edge of the screen telling you to sweep in with your finger from the edge.

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

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.

The OS is supplied out of the box requiring the Metro interface; with 8.1 you can go to the desktop, but then you have to flip modes to go to the home screen to run some apps.

If you haven't installed 3rd party items (not least a PDF reader) then you'll get dumb metro apps when you try and access types of documents.

If you run IE from the home/start page then you'll get the Metro one.

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

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.

The right-click on the Windows 8.1 start icon is not really something to appreciate as a replacement for the Windows 7 Start menu, and right-click to bring up the menu followed by left-click to invoke an item is two clicks.

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

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.

That's really the crux of it; they focused on the lowest common denominator and stripped out stuff which wouldn't work. never mind if you've got a mega graphics card in your quad-core PC - you get nothing more than someone who got a Nokia 520 mobile free with their contract.

prowla

securityguy wrote: »

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

Fortunately, I've been using UNIX since the 80s; it's curious that the best systems of today (ie. Apple and Linux) are UNIX based.

Curiously, Microsoft wrote the first PC release of UNIX (Xenix). Sadly they tried to invent something different, and just seem to struggle with it.

prowla

ThemeOne wrote: »

Windows 8 is perfectly fine, and faster than 7 - just don't *ever* use any of the Metro apps, or the start screen, or the new start button (which takes you to the start screen).

There are lots of articles on how to avoid all these online. But the average paying customer doesn't want to have to google articles and follow instructions before having a usable system, and I think *that* was Microsoft's mistake.

I wouldn't say that Windows 8 is perfectly anything - I spent ages trying to figure out why they had set such silly defaults and how I could get the settings to something better, only to find that they'd actually stripped out the bits I was looking to turn back on.