Windows 8 Adoption Poor

[Macro]

Microsoft set out to change their UI to ring touch friendly, it was widely criticised before the release and after, theyd pushed touch friendlyness over desktop friendlyness. People were using start8 etc to make it as functional as Win 7. All the functionality is in windows 8 to have the start menu type UI but Microsoft deliberately didn't allow this to be used natively. They strong armed their new UI with windows 8 despite objections and now it seems the suits have got involved to sort things out. Call it bullying or whatever you would prefer, it was a bad decision.

To progress you have to change and it certainly isn't "bullying" unless you have a penchant for the dramatic.

The touch based changes to the world of IT are seismic in scale, similar to the introduction and general use of the internet and online culture in the late 90s. You only have to look at the recent PC sales figures to see how touch based devices are increasing in market share at the expense of old desktop PCs whose sales figure continue to rapidly decline.

Windows 7 is no longer an OS capable of embracing the changes that are the future of Personal Computers, like it or not. MS has to evolve windows and take it's user base with it or simply not be relevant other than to a few luddites in 10 years time.

If you can make Windows 8 work like Windows 7 then you may as well have stuck with Windows 7. Much like Vista an OS has to take a popularity hit to change things. Vista changed the security and driver models amongst other things for the better and people didn't like it because they don't like change and it stopped 5 year old ropey drivers for scanners and printer working. Other than for some fine tuning around things like UAC Vista was a very good OS and moved the platform forward. If Windows 7 had have been released instead of Vista at the same time it would have had the same bad name for the same reasons.

People were dragged kicking and screaming forward and even now here there are some who refuse to move on from XP. If you look back to the old days of XP though and compare it to now, when was the last time you saw a Blue Screen of Death or mass virus outbreak, because they were pretty common before Vista.

Windows needs to change and evolve, those that don't want to change can stay on 7 with no problem, it's a fine OS. It'd be a shame if MS back tracked now, the platform needs to evolve, it's what technology is all about, fine tune the new experience, sure, but it needs to keep moving forward or end up an irrelevance eventually. If you let people turn 8 back into 7 you end up stuck in the past and new OS options will quickly overtake you as a significant number of people will take the path of least resistance and decide not to learn new skills. Look what happened with IE, it stopped changing and innovating and lost market share from 90%+ to 50% in a very few years because of the same "don't change anything it works fine just tinker at the edges" philosophy. The same happened to numerous technology giants, WordPerfect, Lotus 123, Netware, all of whom had 90%+ market share and all faded into insignificance in a few years because they couldn't, or were scared to change at the risk of upsetting their installed base.

If W8 works for you then great, if it doesn't stick with 7 but make no mistake, 8 and it successors are the future, the desktop as it is in W7 is the past and be it 5 or 10 years it's going away because technology and computing is changing and a 18 years old UI just doesn't cut it any more.

 

[Elevon]

You say that like all changes are good?

How would you feel if the UK government changed working hours to the night and sleep to the day?

18 years of a certain feature and then they remove it with some big fisher price button theme designed for tablets and say change is good?

Well for me change can be good but choice is always better

Then the cool kids like you are happy and the borgs like me can carry on functioning

Don't buy into all the hype son

I adapted from DOS to Windows,,remember when DOS users had to say bye to DOS,Win95 to Win7 I used the old start button,Win8 took me 2 weeks max to get use without it,the truth is thats why they are bringing it back because of all those whiners,did you see me whining because I no longer have my favourite OS DOS(when Windows took over decades ago)..no I adapted to Windows back then just like I adapted to ALL Windows including Win8 with all the changes and even Linux.

I'll even get use to the changes in Win9,10,11 etc but you can bet you'll still get people moaning about this and that etc ,some things never change with people.


Personally I would rather see them move forward and make a new improved UI with no need for a start button ,operating systems evolve and change over time,too bad some people like to stay in the past.

I can understand choice and its great for those that can't live without it,I just hope that most of their efforts go into new ideas and improving the UI rather then just bringing some old things back thats my point.
One last point I hope they make the start button different/improved ,that would be better then going back to the old one IMHO.

Anyway whatever happens I can handle it like I always have , the big question is can those people out there handle Win9,10,11 etc down the road(obviously some won't be able too,especially if start button missing phases them).

 

[V F]

Most people on this forum are males and tech savy ones at that. Its a different kettle of fish when you have a massive organisation and you have to offer retraining. If you are on windows 7 running a classic theme because you had the same issue when you migrated from xp... You are not gonna be to happy about win8!

I'm not bashing it. I'm saying I welcome the CHOICE and it will benefit Microsoft in the long run as companies will be able to intergrate without a retraining issue

Honestly? can you really say that? have you read most of the discussions since October? this is not the forum you just described.

 

[Elevon]

Most people on this forum are males and tech savy ones at that. Its a different kettle of fish when you have a massive organisation and you have to offer retraining. If you are on windows 7 running a classic theme because you had the same issue when you migrated from xp... You are not gonna be to happy about win8!

I'm not bashing it. I'm saying I welcome the CHOICE and it will benefit Microsoft in the long run as companies will be able to intergrate without a retraining issue

So you are saying people are stupid,they seem able to handle mobile phones fine and they have changed a lot over the decades/years,did they need retraining?..obviously not.

Take me for example when I was at school we never had computers infact pocket calculators were still pretty new,all I know about PCs I learned myself,DOS,Windows and even Linux(and building PCs),its not rocket science.

 

[Caged]

You're overestimating the intelligence of most of the working population. There are a huge amount of people in every organisation who would struggle to work a smartphone.

The average office worker wouldn't be able to access their email if the Outlook shortcut disappeared from their desktop, Windows 8 would require large amounts of training to get people happy with it. Anyone who can't see how there are training costs associated with a Windows 8 migration that weren't there with the move from XP to 7 either has no basis for this assumption or should know that I'm deeply jealous that they work with competent people.

 

[Narj]

Regarding adapting to new versions, look at the amount of grief moving to the newer versions of office causes. I still rage hard when I can't find something that was instantly accessible via the old style menus. This ribbon crap still drives me crazy and barely a day goes by at work when I don't hear someone moaning about not being able to find particular functions. Newer doesn't always mean improved from a user perspective.

I'm happy with Win7, it's the pinnacle of Windows OS's as far as I'm concerned. Win8 is clever but I have no appetite for it.

 

[_Jimlad_]

Honestly? can you really say that? have you read most of the discussions since October? this is not the forum you just described.

You clearly did not read my post. I said give users a choice. When a choice is clearly so easy to add as at least 3 third party apps have proved. I have win8 on two of my 3 machines. However nothing has convinced me that rolling out win8 for the company I work for would be wise without a classic theme.

 

[Rroff]

You're overestimating the intelligence of most of the working population. There are a huge amount of people in every organisation who would struggle to work a smartphone.

The average office worker wouldn't be able to access their email if the Outlook shortcut disappeared from their desktop, Windows 8 would require large amounts of training to get people happy with it. Anyone who can't see how there are training costs associated with a Windows 8 migration that weren't there with the move from XP to 7 either has no basis for this assumption or should know that I'm deeply jealous that they work with competent people.

Agreed - I've done training for IT systems before - a lot of people memorise a "path" or steps to do something and remove or even slightly change any one of those steps and a lot of people can't even reason it out for themselves how to get to what they wanted.

 

[_Jimlad_]

Furthermore it baffles me why peeps on this forum have to be left or right? I can see both sides and my personal view is give users options. That's why I prefer android over apple for example. The views of some people are so OTT

 

[_Jimlad_]

Agreed - I've done training for IT systems before - a lot of people memorise a "path" or steps to do something and remove or even slightly change any one of those steps and a lot of people can't even reason it out for themselves how to get to what they wanted.

If anyone thinks the metro theme and windows 8 fits in a massive company with a range of skills and ages is nuts.

 

[Rroff]

Furthermore it baffles me why peeps on this forum have to be left or right? I can see both sides and my personal view is give users options. That's why I prefer android over apple for example. The views of some people are so OTT

Yup I'm sure there are plenty of people who the metro setup works for maybe even be the optimal way they work but its certainly not the best way for everyone options are good - forcing a completely different way to do things on people by default not so good.

 

[V F]

You clearly did not read my post. I said give users a choice. When a choice is clearly so easy to add as at least 3 third party apps have proved. I have win8 on two of my 3 machines. However nothing has convinced me that rolling out win8 for the company I work for would be wise without a classic theme.

I don't see OS X users having kittens with no start menu or such. Choice will have lead back to the old ways. But you still missed one crucial point. Tech savvy.

So you are saying people are stupid,they seem able to handle mobile phones fine and they have changed a lot of the decades/years,did they need retraining?..obviously not.

^^ tech savvy, why are so many tech savvy PC users going mental for a missing button? The tech savvy people before 2007 are long gone here because before 2007, tech savvy PC users loved to tinker. Not this decade. This decade the place rips itself apart when you take a teeny weeny start button away.

I cannot function without my button!

If they were that tech savvy they would be keyboard users, so a missing button would not care to them. Because all their tasks can be done via the keyboard. GPS via Start and Metro.

If you can't function without a start button or classic start menu, you can't be tech savvy. Because tech savvy users learn to adapt. Not protest.

 

[james.miller]

You say that like all changes are good?

How would you feel if the UK government changed working hours to the night and sleep to the day?

did you really just compare the lack of a button on the taskbar to changing the working hours of an entire nation?

 

[Elevon]

I don't see OS X users having kittens with no start menu or such. Choice will have lead back to the old ways. But you still missed one crucial point. Tech savvy.



^^ tech savvy, why are so many tech savvy PC users going mental for a missing button? The tech savvy people before 2007 are long gone here because before 2007, tech savvy PC users loved to tinker. Not this decade. This decade the place rips itself apart when you take a teeny weeny start button away.

I cannot function without my button!

If they were that tech savvy they would be keyboard users, so a missing button would not care to them.

Hehe that's why I'm scared for the future I mean if they truly can't handle a simple button missing ,can't wait to see them throw fits over Win9,10,11 etc..

Maybe I'm being too obvious ,operating systems always evolve and change etc..regardless of what you like or hate ,nothing stays the same forever,you want examples DOS to Windows,Win 3.11 to Win95,Win7 to Win8,I've not even touch Linux Distro's .

 

[V F]

What I can't get my head around is how so many computer enthusiasts now go crazy at change. The past decade all they ever done was change, change, alter, hack, modify and change again.

Supermarket isles change as well, do they protest for the old ways?

I mean you have this windows key on your keyboard. Two pushes is somehow hard. I mean people type on their blasted keyboards. CTRL + ALT + DEL... do they no longer do this?

I can't even get over the thought of the demand for old start menus and start buttons. It's so puny thinking about it. Two small issues with so many people and the space time continuum goes breasts up. Epic fail and disasters and all that.

 

[Minstadave]

Change is fine, if its for the better. People will accept change and new ways of working if the benefits are substantial.

Pointless change is the problem. Win 8s interface has been changed to benefit touch users, with no benefit to desktop users or even to their detriment, so this change has been poorly received.

 

[gareth170]

Change is fine, if its for the better. People will accept change and new ways of working if the benefits are substantial.

Pointless change is the problem. Win 8s interface has been changed to benefit touch users, with no benefit to desktop users or even to their detriment, so this change has been poorly received.

but it as for a lot of people.

how can you state win8 UI doesn't have any benefit to desktop users when there are desktop users out there that are finding it much better.

yes maybe you and some others don't see any benefit from it . but it doesn't mean all desktop users won't see any benefit from it

 

[V F]

Minstadave, you obviously don't know your fellow man very well then. Because no matter what change is done in this world they will rebel. Good or bad. Unless somebody famous enough influences them through the power of advertising and marketing.

After all, Logitech has made touch devices for desktop users.

 

[Pigeon_Killer]

Why are people acting so butthurt? They aren't getting rid of Metro just giving people the choice

 

[gareth170]

people have choice already. use metro or use a 3rd party program to get the start button back.

it's just like if you didn't like way the UI looked or felled in previous OS's you would change it by using a 3rd party program. which I've done before.