Windows 8 will fail?

[Black Magic]

I have used Windows 8 RTM for a few weeks since release and I have to say it sucks. I completely expect to see this OS flounder once released and there is very little hype around it. You know its doomed when everyone is more excited about the iPad Mini than this OS.

How do you guys and gals feel? Will Steve Ballmer retire in 2013 Q1 due to this massive failure?

 

[flopticalcube]

They will muddle through most likely like they did with Vista. I don't know why Ballmer is still CEO. Most companies would have ejected a loser like that years ago.

 

[robanga]

I have only played with it but i will get it to put on something when it comes out. They key to making this work for Microsoft will be to build out the ecosystem around it, Windows RT, surface and phones and make compelling reasons for people to switch or late adopt.

They are gunning for mid and late adopters here right into the teeth of Google and Apple, not an easy thing. Its an attractive UI and certainly they have the money to market it but its a bet the company sort of thing to do it right and their board has to be rolling in their beds at 3AM thinking about that.

Certainly businesses are not going to rush out and upgrade their installed base. They are going to need great execution and a bit of luck.

 

[ChazUK]

I don't like it and think Canonical have the right idea this Ubuntu release:

 

[xuselppa]

Win8 will not flop, simply because it will be installed on every consumer PC from here on. You simply have no choice in the matter. Sink or swim time.

 

[robanga]

Win8 will not flop, simply because it will be installed on every consumer PC from here on. You simply have no choice in the matter. Sink or swim time.

Vista wasn't a flop by that definition, but i think if we see adoption rates that are similar to Vista it will be viewed very negatively.

 

[xuselppa]

Vista wasn't a flop by that definition, but i think if we see adoption rates that are similar to Vista it will be viewed very negatively.

I don't think we can view Win8 in the same context as Vista, because there is a Halo effect from multiple mobile consumer devices (Windows Phone, Surface and other OEM tablets, plus PC and laptops). People will become familiar with the platform in some shape or form over the next two years. Will Microsoft be able to grab more than 5 percent marketshare in the mobile arena, because of Win8, is the real question?

 

[robanga]

I don't think we can view Win8 in the same context as Vista, because there is a Halo effect from multiple mobile consumer devices (Windows Phone, Surface and other OEM tablets, plus PC and laptops). People will become familiar with the platform in some shape or form over the next two years. Will Microsoft be able to grab more than 5 percent marketshare in the mobile arena, because of Win8, is the real question?

There better be a Halo effect (might as well through the Xbox in there too) because it really is bet the company time for Microsoft.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

W8 will have a terrible reputation, and W9 will come sooner than later. Like what happened with Vista and how fast W7 came after.

 

[Renzatic]

And why will it have a terrible reputation exactly? I hear people saying this all the time, yet no one says why.

 

[Rogifan]

Most big businesses are just upgrading to Windows 7. By the time they're ready to upgrade again we'll be on Windows 9 or 10.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

And why will it have a terrible reputation exactly? I hear people saying this all the time, yet no one says why.

Metro sucks!!!! It's more like bloatware on a PC.

 

[Renzatic]

Most big businesses are just upgrading to Windows 7. By the time they're ready to upgrade again we'll be on Windows 9 or 10.

That doesn't mean it's going to have a bad reputation. Truthfully, I don't think some people understand why Vista had a bad rep, and how Win8 doesn't suffer from even a single one of the problems that plagued it.

Oooh. New Start screen. Everyone's gonna hate it forever and MS will go out of business.

Metro sucks!!!! It's more like bloatware on a PC.

So don't use Metro apps! IT'S SO SIMPLE!

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

So don't use Metro apps! IT'S SO SIMPLE!

No, it's not that simple.

The Metro UI is unavoidable. You can't boot directly to desktop anymore. So bloatware it is.

 

[Renzatic]

The Metro UI is unavoidable. You can't boot directly to desktop anymore. So bloatware it is.

First, I don't think you know what bloatware is.

Secondly, no. You can't boot to the desktop directly anymore. But resuming from standby, which is what most people do these days, takes you directly there.

Thirdly, the unavoidable Metro UI is an application launcher. You've got all your stuff lined up to fire off right away, or you can go directly to the desktop itself with a single click.

Yes. That's right. A single click. All this whining, moaning, and complaining is over one. Single. Mouse. Click. It adds roughly .3 seconds to the whole bootup process. Considering Win8 boots up in about 4 seconds on a good SSD now...yeah. I've never seen so many people freak out over something so little. It's ridiculous.

 

[Black Magic]

First, I don't think you know what bloatware is.

Secondly, no. You can't boot to the desktop directly anymore. But resuming from standby, which is what most people do these days, takes you directly there.

Thirdly, the unavoidable Metro UI is an application launcher. You've got all your stuff lined up to fire off right away, or you can go directly to the desktop itself with a single click.

Yes. That's right. A single click. All this whining, moaning, and complaining is over one. Single. Mouse. Click. It adds roughly .3 seconds to the whole bootup process. Considering Win8 boots up in about 4 seconds on a good SSD now...yeah. I've never seen so many people freak out over something so little. It's ridiculous.

Why even add that extra click in the first place? It's inefficient if all anyone is going to do is click it to get away from Metro. What if there was a new automotive feature that required you to honk the horn once before you can start the car? Guess what? I would want the car that I don't have to honk the horn.

Windows 8 is a hot mess. I'm not even going to get into using web browsers in Metro or having to click 3 or so times to shutdown the PC unless you use keyboard shortcuts. It's really a jack of all trades and a master of none. I quickly went back to Windows 7 to be more efficient.

Oh and folks claim that Metro is revolutionary and that it makes IOS look old which is bizarre to me. So people prefer COLORED SQUARES IN A ROW over ICONS in a ROW? Same copy and paste job Microsoft has always done, just with a little twist. It not new and it's certainly not desirable. I'll let the market validate that for me.

Cheers!

 

[Renzatic]

Why even add that extra click in the first place? It's inefficient if all anyone is going to do is click it to get away from Metro. What if there was a new automotive feature that required you to honk the horn once before you can start the car? Guess what? I would want the car that I don't have to honk the horn.

Because having to honk your horn to start your car is completely and totally the same as a single mouse click. It isn't inefficient and pointless because there are a thousand things you can do right off from the Start screen instead of going directly to the desktop. Like if I want to load Photoshop as soon as I boot the computer. Well, there's the icon right there. I could click it instead of the big desktop tile, and get to it exactly as quickly as if I launched it from the taskbar on the desktop itself.

Hell, same thing with launching Chrome. Hit the icon on the Start screen instead of on the taskbar.

Or maybe I want to launch the Metro weather app instead of going to the desktop. Well there you go. See? It's an application launcher. It serves a purpose beyond keeping you away from the desktop as long as possible for no apparent reason.

Honk the horn. Man. That's about the stupidest, lamest analogy I've seen around here. Certainly you can do better than that.

Windows 8 is a hot mess. I'm not even going to get into using web browsers in Metro or having to click 3 or so times to shutdown the PC unless you use keyboard shortcuts. It's really a jack of all trades and a master of none. I quickly went back to Windows 7 to be more efficient.

I've been using Windows 8 for awhile, and I find I use it almost exactly how I used Windows 7. It looks a little different, but that's about it.

...though I will admit hiding the power button like they did was pretty damn dumb.

Oh and folks claim that Metro is revolutionary and that it makes IOS look old which is bizarre to me. So people prefer COLORED SQUARES IN A ROW over ICONS in a ROW? Same copy and paste job Microsoft has always done, just with a little twist. It not new and it's certainly not desirable. I'll let the market validate that for me.

Did Apple invent the row of icons? How is MS copying them? Because their setup requires you to launch applications by hitting an abstract representative of them collected together in an array?

Also, Metro isn't just about the colored tiles. It's an entire design language, of which the colored tiles on the Start menu is only one small part.

 

[MRU]

It's a business environment (in corporate offices) I would be more concerned about. Metro looks very consumer and not very business like.

Likewise on a desktop or normal laptop with a trackpad, some of the gestures which are natural on a touch device, feel overly cumbersome.

And tucking away things like power is inconvenient at best.


What I suspect will happen is that with Windows 8 SP1, Microsoft will add the option to bypass metro and use a simplified start menu if you choose.

Personally they should have had that option from day 1.

Do I think it will fail, no....
Do i think it will undergo many changes yes...




Do i think Windows RT is a right move... no.

If the goal was deliver Windows 8 on ARM to compete with Android and iOS well yes they have done that; but the pricing is too close to similar Atom powered models which will have the full Windows 8 experience in tablet hardware, so what is the point of RT other than to cause confusion for the consumer, especially when 'on the surface' it looks identical to the full windows version (see what I did there )

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

First, I don't think you know what bloatware is.

Secondly, no. You can't boot to the desktop directly anymore. But resuming from standby, which is what most people do these days, takes you directly there.

Thirdly, the unavoidable Metro UI is an application launcher. You've got all your stuff lined up to fire off right away, or you can go directly to the desktop itself with a single click.

Yes. That's right. A single click. All this whining, moaning, and complaining is over one. Single. Mouse. Click. It adds roughly .3 seconds to the whole bootup process. Considering Win8 boots up in about 4 seconds on a good SSD now...yeah. I've never seen so many people freak out over something so little. It's ridiculous.

Metro is clunky at best, it's doesn't feel smooth at all and I'm running on very good specs. The transition going back n forth from metro to desktop has a jerky feel to it, especially when using hot corners.

I don't like Metro and many others feel the same. It was made for touch, not mouse or touchpad.

It's not whining or moaning. That's just what your making it out to be by your need to defend it so hard.

 

[MRU]

...though I will admit hiding the power button like they did was pretty damn dumb.

Yep that's my biggest bugbear. It makes turning off your computer (yes folks many of us still do that) something that used to take a flick of the windows key and a click on shutdown, into a convoluted procedure that takes 4X as long.

Metro is clunky at best, it's doesn't feel smooth at all and I'm running on very good specs. The transition going back n forth from metro to desktop has a jerky feel to it, especially when using hot corners.

I don't like Metro and many others feel the same. It was made for touch, not mouse or touchpad.

It's not whining or moaning. That's just what your making it out to be by your need to defend it so hard.

Exactly my thoughts and I've been using the final version for a while as part of my MSDN subscription. As pretty as it looks, it is just cumbersome with a trackpad or mouse.

 

[Renzatic]

Metro is clunky at best, it's doesn't feel smooth at all and I'm running on very good specs. The transition going back n forth from metro to desktop has a jerky feel to it, especially when using hot corners.

Really? I can hit the hot corner without even looking, and the "jerky" transition is a smooth fade in even on the older machine I have Win8 installed (which I'm on now, by the way). Hell, I could make a video of me hitting it over and over and over again without missing it once just by flicking my mouse cursor. It's like activating old Expose on OSX. No one ever complained about one of the corners being hard to hit there.

Honestly, I think you're just looking for things to complain about.

I don't like Metro and many others feel the same. It was made for touch, not mouse or touchpad.

Metro apps? Yeah. I can agree with that. The Start screen? Not so much. They're just squares that you click with your mouse to launch stuff. They're a little bigger than traditional icons, sure. But that just means they're that much easier to hit with a mouse.

It's not whining or moaning. That's just what your making it out to be by your need to defend it so hard.

I defend it mostly because the complaints I read here are dumb. Win8 isn't perfect. It's kinda weird in places. Either the Verge or Ars Technica one did an article explaining why it's not exactly a "touch ready" OS just yet that I agreed with. It is very much transitional, and Win9 will likely be much, much smoother overall.

But to complain about that one extra mouse click? It's like some people want to hate it. And that's stupid.

----------

Yep that's my biggest bugbear. It makes turning off your computer (yes folks many of us still do that) something that used to take a flick of the windows key and a click on shutdown, into a convoluted procedure that takes 4X as long.

There's actually a slightly easier way to access it. Go to the charms bar, and hit settings. You'll see it there at the bottom.

Still not as easy to find as it used to be, but at least you don't have to log out and go all the way back to the splash screen to get to it.

 

[mgipe]

It certainly makes OS-X look more attractive....

 

[Black Magic]

Because having to honk your horn to start your car is completely and totally the same as a single mouse click. It isn't inefficient and pointless because there are a thousand things you can do right off from the Start screen instead of going directly to the desktop. Like if I want to load Photoshop as soon as I boot the computer. Well, there's the icon right there. I could click it instead of the big desktop tile, and get to it exactly as quickly as if I launched it from the taskbar on the desktop itself.

Hell, same thing with launching Chrome. Hit the icon on the Start screen instead of on the taskbar.

Or maybe I want to launch the Metro weather app instead of going to the desktop. Well there you go. See? It's an application launcher. It serves a purpose beyond keeping you away from the desktop as long as possible for no apparent reason.

Honk the horn. Man. That's about the stupidest, lamest analogy I've seen around here. Certainly you can do better than that.



I've been using Windows 8 for awhile, and I find I use it almost exactly how I used Windows 7. It looks a little different, but that's about it.

...though I will admit hiding the power button like they did was pretty damn dumb.



Did Apple invent the row of icons? How is MS copying them? Because their setup requires you to launch applications by hitting an abstract representative of them collected together in an array?

Also, Metro isn't just about the colored tiles. It's an entire design language, of which the colored tiles on the Start menu is only one small part.

The honk the horn analogy was to point out adding an extra layer of inefficiency. It was a poor one but it still got the point across.

I don't want metro on the PC. You lose more than you gain in my opinion. If you know people really just want to go to the desktop, why isn't the there an option to start with whatever launcher you want?

I doubt many businesses will adopt Windows 8 and to be honest, I think Microsoft is dying a very slow death.

 

[Renzatic]

The honk the horn analogy was to point out adding an extra layer of inefficiency. It was a poor one but it still got the point across.

Though I'm saying it's not inefficient so much as it's just a little different.

Like what do you do right after your boot your computer to the desktop? You click on an application. It's the same thing here. You want to launch IE or something, click the big blue E from the Start screen instead of the task bar, and it opens it up on the desktop. Different execution? Yeah, slightly. Functionally? It's exactly the same.

I don't want metro on the PC. You lose more than you gain in my opinion. If you know people really just want to go to the desktop, why isn't the there an option to start with whatever launcher you want?

Actually, the option would be nice for the holders on. That has been one of the things that most people like about Windows, how you're not forced to do one thing one way. MS did take that away from them in Win8.

But as far as the new Start goes, I actually like the metro'd version a little better. I can fit more onscreen, organize it better, and see more results at once when I do a type to search.

It all comes down to preference in the end, but I do think some people don't like it just because it's different and want something to complain about, rather than it actually being truly broken and worth complaining about.

I doubt many businesses will adopt Windows 8 and to be honest, I think Microsoft is dying a very slow death.

There hasn't been much evidence of that so far. OEMs are sliding slowly down the stocks ladder, but that's just because they've raced so far to the bottom, they have no where else to go. MS is still as strong as it ever was.

 

[MRU]

There's actually a slightly easier way to access it. Go to the charms bar, and hit settings. You'll see it there at the bottom.

Still not as easy to find as it used to be, but at least you don't have to log out and go all the way back to the splash screen to get to it.

Yeah that's how I access it at the moment