Is Microsoft about to make the biggest mistake ever with windows8?

[Macro]

I'm giving up on the "omgmetroistehdebil" bandwagon lot, most of the "I want my desktop metro isn't for a desktop pc" posts are from people with little to no experience actually using it. Crys of "OMG we'll have to spend millions on retraining mavis the receptionist" just serve to illustrate the lack of understanding. in a corporate environment the metro start screen is actually simpler and faster for the average user. Boot PC, get a screen with all your commonly used apps right in front of you, click app, get on with life. Decide you need another program, click bottom left corner of screen, full screen menu of apps appear, click app, happy days.

 

[Macro]

It works so well, in fact, that legions of sites like this have popped up:

http://macgateway.com/windows/unlock-windows-8/

explaining to users who are stuck on the welcome screen how to get past it.

That's pure brilliance, right there.

An apple fan site, because OSX is so more intuitive... Ohh... wait...

I'm still waiting for anyone to really give a sensible reason why Windows 8 is bad for a desktop PC. If you can't follow the intro and work out the "start" menu is still via a click in the bottom left corner the same as the last 17 years you should probably consider crayons and paper as a valid IT solution.

Even if that, or pressing a button for the lock page is confusing to you it's only so for the first time.

As for OMG Metro is confusing?!?!? Really? It's a single full screen page with all your applications on it. Is that really confusing requiring major retraining?

If I was to write a post about Windows 7 in the same way as some of the twaddle I see about 8 it'd go:- To find your app you must click a nondescript circle thing on the bottom left corner which has no label or indication of what it's for(trust me, it's a start menu though, even though it doesn't say it is, oh, and when I say start you will also use the same button to "stop" your computer but let's not worry about that bit yet), now then select all programs (or maybe the program is already listed at the top, in which case don't click "all programs"), anyway, once you have clicked all programs (still with me? good) scroll about a bit and find a folder, now the folder (well I say folder, it's another icon thing with no description of what it does) is almost certainly not named after the program you wanted but instead will have a random name, possibly named after the program publisher (don't know the name of the publisher, hmm, ok, just click into some of the folders listed there and hope one is the one you're after), if you found the folder with a name that sounds like the sort of name the people that made your program would name it, click that folder and inside should be the program you want to use, possibly with a bunch of other icons that you have no idea what they do, don't click them even if they do look like similar names to the program you want. Now of course having got this far you could pin this program to the desktop or the task bar but as to explain that may take years off my life and as you could do that in Win8 as well that particular point is pretty much moot in terms of comparison anyway.

Oh so easy to write sensationalist twaddle

 

[Pigeon_Killer]

Fan boys will love it, normal people will hate it but as it'll come preloaded on all PC's in a few months sales figures will show it sold well.

As for the tablets, as far as I'm concerned there's no market at the price point being mentioned for either variant and I expect they'll both be a bigger flops than Microsoft's disastrous attempts in the mobile phone market.

 

[Glaucus]

Fan boys will love it, normal people will hate it but as it'll come preloaded on all PC's in a few months sales figures will show it sold well.

As for the tablets, as far as I'm concerned there's no market at the price point being mentioned for either variant and I expect they'll both be a bigger flops than Microsoft's disastrous attempts in the mobile phone market.

If that happen they might as well shut up shop on their Os sector.
Tablets and smart phones are essential for the future well being of the company. Not only have those markets eclipsed tradition computing. The availability of cheap good alternative Os with huge market share in those areas, means profitability of future Os in their current form is questionable at best. You need the Eco system of app stores to make the Os profitable. The Os is just a free base, to exploit other avenus of profitability.
I think you will find apple and Linux/android will all start merging towards a single Os in the coming years.

As for price points, I think you're listening to nonsense. There's even articles saying $200 but i wouldn't believe any of those figures till we see them.

Another reason I can't wait is like most people on this forum, we support parents/family's.
My parents want a tablet, want a smart box for the tv to watch iplayer and the like, they have a pc, they both have smart phones they don't know 90% off the functions. When win8 ones I can install it on all their devices. They have one learning curve for ll items, rather than 3 or 4 learning curves for each device.
Things like refresh will come in so Andy. The integration with skydrive and syncing settings, will be invaluable. Th integration of security/virus is invaluable.
Basically what it means is a few hours teaching them, for a long term lot less hassle. Parents will get far more functionality than they have know, will know far more off the functions and will naturally try doing one thing on a different device and all bwing win8 that function is cross platform.

Rather than I do xyz on my phone, how on earth do I do that on the desktop.

 

[Macro]

Fan boys will love it, normal people will hate it but as it'll come preloaded on all PC's in a few months sales figures will show it sold well.

As for the tablets, as far as I'm concerned there's no market at the price point being mentioned for either variant and I expect they'll both be a bigger flops than Microsoft's disastrous attempts in the mobile phone market.

You're very funny... Confused, but funny

 

[theheyes]

As for the tablets, as far as I'm concerned there's no market at the price point being mentioned for either variant and I expect they'll both be a bigger flops than Microsoft's disastrous attempts in the mobile phone market.

Windows RT tablets are priced somewhere between the cheapest and most expensive iPad models, and there seems to be a healthy demand for those.

 

[Pigeon_Killer]

Windows RT tablets are priced somewhere between the cheapest and most expensive iPad models, and there seems to be a healthy demand for those.

There is a healthy demand but Apple could create a healthy demand for porous water bottles if they stuck an Apple logo on them

If MS decide they want to compete directly with the iPad they'll be setting themselves up for a big fall. People who buy Apple products generally stick with Apple products and the people like myself who would love an iPad but can't justify the cost will continue to get cheap Android alternatives.

IMO they need to take a hit with their first wave of tablets to get people on board and the rumoured price of $200 would be a great way of achieving that.

 

[Macro]

It's almost like you have a vested interest in win8 being a success. Bought any MS shares recently?

Every single post where anyone says anything critical of win8 you've literally jumped down their throats.

Actually I'm with Glaucus and some of the other more sane posters on the subject. Whist clearly the new look isn't for everyone, some of the tabloid type sensationalist posts should be responded to, in particular as often they are based on what is at best incorrect information (like the only way to get past the lock screen is to click and drag, omgz!!!111elenvtyone).

Plenty of "news" sites will post some of this stuff to drive page hits and revenue by being controversial and that's fair game. What is more surprising is the occasional regurgitating of some of the twaddle here as if it were fact by people that you would expect to know better or at the least have an open mind given we're on a IT enthusiast forum.


Having said that I don't suppose it's any worse than the incoherent rants of the Windows vs Mac, AMD vs Nvidia troll bait threads. People like "the dramaz on the internetz". /shrug

Win8 won't be for some and Windows 7 is a fine OS to carry on using. Being honest I really can't find a reason not to use 8 so far on either my laptop or gaming rig. It has all the best of 7, a bunch of improvements and actually I quite like the metro/modern UI screen with all my "stuff" in one place. Still, some wont like it and that's no problem, skipping an OS version and going to 9 next is a common OS update strategy for enterprise customers. Not, in this case as it's bound to be spun "because Windows 8 is another Vista", rather because Windows 7 is an excellent OS and deploying to 10s of thousands of end users, especially when you've only just finished/still working on getting Win 7 deployed is a costly exercise.

I fully expect to see posts here and in some of the press about "win 8 being a disaster" though, and in pure terms of numbers of course it's unlikely to compete with 7, but that is more to do with 7 being excellent and deployment lifecycles than 8 itself.

FWIW I'm fairly convinced that if 7 had have been released at the same time, and instead of Vista, it would have been panned by all and sundry as well for breaking driver models, security, UAC, hardware, blah, blah...

I remember well the posts of "windows XP is the debil", "Luna UI is like fisher price for N00bs" "real pro's use "classic" mode to make XP look like Windows 95". "real pros use 2000". "XP is full of bloat with a stupid bright UI sucking CPUz and GPUz, Windows 98SE does everything I need without the bloat". Usually from the same people who later refused to give up their beloved XP for Vista or 7 because it was "bloatware". Oh how time change.... errrr...stay the same

Anyway, I quite like it so "nah boo sucks" to you

 

[Danthus]

The problem is the Metro interface is designed for touch and that doesn't work on the desktop.

 

[Macro]

The problem is the Metro interface is designed for touch and that doesn't work on the desktop.

This is not true... In which way does it not work on a desktop?

 

[TheVoice]

This is not true...

It's less a case of it not working, and more that it doesn't work efficiently. There is nothing efficient about a full screen menu of large tiles/icons when you're using a mouse. It just means you have less on screen at one time and takes more movement to actually select what you want. For a touch interface or for use with a TV etc it makes some sense, but I resent having my entire display taken over by a menu.

I rather like the improvements to the actual desktop side that I've seen so far, but my experience with Metro through the betas/previews has been mostly unpleasant so I'm not prepared to purchase and use an OS that is going to make using my PC more inconvenient.

Bit of a shame, but there we go. Windows 7 will be fine for a few more years though, it won't be as bad as the people using XP through Vista/Win7's life.

 

[ots3go]

The only thing that really annoys me about 8 is the fact the desktop, without aero, looks pretty terrible.

Other than that, I've been getting on pretty well with it.

I like being able to press the start button and have a full screen throwing basic information at me and having the option to look into that information further. (Messaging / E-mail / New apps). It all seems to flow pretty nicely too. All the "not designed for desktop" is pretty mute once you've had a play with it.

 

[Adam_101]

They designed Windows 8 for tablets and that's exactly what it's going to be used for.
That's all I have to say, I'll be sticking with Windows 7 for a long time, there's no need to upgrade.

Same here.

 

[Glaucus]

It's less a case of it not working, and more that it doesn't work efficiently. There is nothing efficient about a full screen menu of large tiles/icons when you're using a mouse. It just means you have less on screen at one time and takes more movement to actually select what you want. For a touch interface or for use with a TV etc it makes some sense, but I resent having my entire display taken over by a menu.

I rather like the improvements to the actual desktop side that I've seen so far, but my experience with Metro through the betas/previews has been mostly unpleasant so I'm not prepared to purchase and use an OS that is going to make using my PC more inconvenient.

Bit of a shame, but there we go. Windows 7 will be fine for a few more years though, it won't be as bad as the people using XP through Vista/Win7's life.

There's far more information on the screen, than traditional desktop. Due to live tiles. There's also more than enough space to display everything. What's the point of having static little icons, with no information and only takes up 10% of the screen.
Also organize your applications, radating out from the bottom left corner and it's far less mouse movement. As well as actual clicks.

 

[Macro]

The only thing that really annoys me about 8 is the fact the desktop, without aero, looks pretty terrible..

I don't think I'd go as far as terrible but I'm with you on the novelty of everything being flat wearing thin. I can see windows 9 or 10 having the selling point of 3d effects, shadows and chrome graphics exploiting the power of your GPU causing everyone over 15 at the time to suddenly have flash backs to XPs release

 

[james.miller]

There's far more information on the screen, than traditional desktop. Due to live tiles. There's also far more than enough space to display everything. What's the point of having static little icons, with no information only only takes up 10% of the screen.
Also organize your applications, radating out from the bottom left corner and it's far less mouse movement.

That's fine if everything had live tiles. Quite why most programs would need a live tile I don't know, and for those that don't, it isn't an efficient use of space at all.

all that space and they still can't fit entire program names in the tiles. And no, it doesn't let you move the InfoPath tile to below MS Access

 

[TheVoice]

There's far more information on the screen, than traditional desktop. Due to live tiles. There's also more than enough space to display everything. What's the point of having static little icons, with no information and only takes up 10% of the screen.
Also organize your applications, radating out from the bottom left corner and it's far less mouse movement. As well as actual clicks.

Then it would have made more sense of them to integrate some of those features into the actual desktop or the taskbar, rather than make it an entirely separate screen.

As I've said, I can see there are merits in it but for the most part it feels like it's going to be a brick wall that comes up every time I just want the Start menu. I'm not prepared to go back and forth between two entirely different interfaces all day, so until (if ever) there's a way to remedy that, I'll stick with what I have.

 

[theheyes]

There is a healthy demand but Apple could create a healthy demand for porous water bottles if they stuck an Apple logo on them

True, but I still wouldn't go as far as to say there isn't a market for Windows tablets in that price range. In some ways they are simply better than iPads, so I don't think value will be a big issue especially with OEMs competing with each other in the same space.

If MS decide they want to compete directly with the iPad they'll be setting themselves up for a big fall. People who buy Apple products generally stick with Apple products and the people like myself who would love an iPad but can't justify the cost will continue to get cheap Android alternatives.

There is some overlap, but they aren't competing directly. I think the likely outcome is that Windows tablets will squeeze themselves between the low end Android products and the premium Apple devices and then just expand into a roughly three way split. It's a big and growing market.

IMO they need to take a hit with their first wave of tablets to get people on board and the rumoured price of $200 would be a great way of achieving that.

The $200 Windows RT tablet (it was actually a Surface rumour) is BS. There's no way we'll see launch devices at that price.

 

[Glaucus]

That's fine if everything had live tiles. Quite why most programs would need a live tile I don't know, and for those that don't, it isn't an efficient use of space at all.

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/3164/officeinmetro.jp/img]

all that space and they still can't fit entire program names in the tiles. And no, it doesn't let you move the InfoPath tile to below MS Access :mad:[/QUOTE]

Let's see, it hasn't been released yet. Many programs, will get metro style icons. No, not every program needs live tiles. Never said they did. Some will be though. Emails, weather etc. will massively benefit from live tiles.

And how is that any more wasted space than a traditional desktop? Where over 90% is empty space(all that wasted space :mad: :D )? It isn't.
Why would you want names and icon. I would rather delete the name and just have the icon.
That's also a very bad way to oreorganize stuff, anyway.

Get rid of groups. Radiatout from the bottom left with most used programs first. On the outer fringes have live tiles which don't need interaction like weather, or other apps that display data that you never or hardly ever need to go I to.

There's a very good article somewhere, on how to organize it. Just like there's many articles on how to organic the desktop for best productivity.

The one thing I do dislike on metro and haven't looked to see if there's a cure. Is you can't place stuff exactly where you want. As you take an app out it squish all back together. If you know what I mean. On Ios it does this be default but. You can. Then do it again and it won't auto collapse back together.

 

[Macro]

It's less a case of it not working, and more that it doesn't work efficiently. There is nothing efficient about a full screen menu of large tiles/icons when you're using a mouse. It just means you have less on screen at one time and takes more movement to actually select what you want.

I kinda see what you mean but I can't figure out why it's less efficient or inconvenient. The only time you look at the metro screen really is if your PC is not doing anything, or, you're choosing a program to run, in which case I can find, select and run a program quicker than I could with old style start button. Don't forget you can still pin apps to the desktop or taskbar should you want to the same as in W7

I wonder if (and forgive me if I'm wrong) people are basing some of this on metro "APPS" rather than the OS interface? I don't use many of the metro apps although probably would do more on a tablet. I can see with a metro app being full screen or just two showing, one docked to the side, the case for I want more windows on screen, although even then I suspect few general users will actually have multiple active windows open on screen at one time.

If you're using x86 app (office for example, including office 2013!), games etc everything works the same pretty much as Win7 except the Metro start screen works as a large start menu with what in old terms could be interpreted as gadgets (live tiles) on it.