7 replies to this topic

[flyingfisch]

I just read this. Apparently, windows has done away with transparency in window decorations, etc. as well as making a totally new (and unfamiliar) user interface. Just wondering what everyone else thinks of this.

Screenshots:

[MicroPro]

Apparently, Microsoft screwed.

They mistook the DESKTOP operating system they themselves developed by a small-screen, touch-friendly, detailless operating system. Their improvements are merely a try to adopt their DESKTOP OS to small devices and tablets. Then what's the point in this? The new WinRT ("Metro-style") environment was created to be fast, but it looks dumb. They even removed fancy Aero Glass effects in favor of battery of devices (But you know, my PC uses city electricity and has a good CPU and GPU). They also turned the shut-down feature into some kind of limited hibernate mode and voila! got faster start-up times.

Look at their design philosophy as explained by their engineer: Creating the Windows 8 user experience

I don't know how this made things easier. When I installed the release preview version, I couldn't find the shut-down button so I had to use shutdown.exe /s to turn it off.

So as a desktop user, I get BIG menus and BIG texts and BIG buttons everywhere with poor graphics. Except the acclaimed "security fixes" there are no improvements for me.

If I can get Windows 7's start menu back, and somehow fully disable their beloved, heavily advertised metro environment, and possibly get the aero effects back I may use this "brand new version".

My opinion only ^^ but possibly many others too: RIP, Aero (2003-2012)

[flyingfisch]

...
If I can get Windows 7's start menu back, and somehow fully disable their beloved, heavily advertised metro environment, and possibly get the aero effects back I may use this "brand new version".
...

Exactly.

I loved Aero and was really looking forward to seeing more of this in Win8. I am pretty disappointed by what Microsoft gave us instead.

I don't think Windows 8 is suited to desktops at all.

What does Microsoft think? That we are all going to get rid of our desktops and get tablets? No way, at least for me.

[Forty-Two]

As I have said before, Win8 is gonna fail hard. Why? Because it's designed for the tablet and smartphone world. Android and iOS are already entrenched there; anything else that isn't amazingly better will fail. Win8 cannot be amazingly better. Therefore, it will fail.

It will have a side effect, however. Desktop users will be alienated. Microsoft has already done this 2 times in the past, ME and Vista. They can't afford to do it again. Most of their profits come from their desktop OS market and their office market. Without their mainstay in the OS market, they will be unable to continue as a software company. All of their other products are copies of existing software, and have all suffered staggering losses.

There is another problem with Microsoft. They have poor leadership. Even if Gates was evil, he was still a programmer. He programmed at least 1 piece of commercially successful software (Altair Basic). Balmer, on the other hand, is an MBA. He has not programmed one piece of software in his life. He instituted stack ranking,

Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft

If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, two people were going to get a great review, seven were going to get mediocre reviews, and one was going to get a terrible review

source

This caused projects at Microsoft to stagnate as they became entwined into an increasingly large bureaucracy that prevented actual work from happening. Projects like Windows Reader (Originally an eBook), Vista, and Zune, where Microsoft had several years on their competition ended up being released years later, stripped of features and far from their original purpose. There is no reason that win9 will be any different from win8.

I believe that in the next 5 years, users will be increasingly motivated to change OSs as Microsoft takes yet another plunge in their profits. There are currently 2 other viable options to windows: OS X and Linux (I refer to the FOSS BSDs in this statement as well, though they are not strictly linux). Although OS X has a large fanboy userbase, I do not see it gaining more than 5-10% over the next 5 years, as its overpriced hardware is not comparable to the many cheaper PC manufacturers' products. However, Linux has the power to take the computer world by the storm in the next 5 years, as its many variations form themselves against a unique subset of the computing world.

Linux has a large commercial userbase already, as many companies have searched for a more economically viable solution to windows in the post-recession world. According to two surveys by W3Tech and Security Space released in August 2011 and 2009, respectively, Linux now runs 63.9% or greater of all servers. According to a 2012 survey of companies with $500 million or more in revenues, almost 80% of them foresee an increase in linux usage in their company in the next 12 months, and 71.8% are planning to add more linux computers in order to support "Big Data."

The big obstacle we now face is widespread desktop adoption of linux. However, this may have already begun. Current articles place linux usage from 8-10% and growing (source source). With the failure of win8 eminent, we may finally see Linus's World Domination Plan put into effect.

[MicroPro]

Actually an x86(-64) tablet is the best usable thing for someone, as it can fill the place of one's desktop computer at move, being able to run one's daily operating system. So Windows can be an ideal choose for a tablet, considering the user knows what he's doing (low speed...)

It seems microsoft's concentration on tablet market not only distracted them from improving the desktop, but they made desktop even worse.

Reminds me of the time when they removed menus and toolbars of Office 2007 (just read again: removed menus and toolbars!!!) and put a difficult-to-navigate, hard-to-find-features ribbon. Many commercial products that returned menus and toolbars back to Office were made because of this. You know, MSFT likes 3rd party developers and creates ways for people to earn money.

There is always a resistance to big changes in a software's userbase. Microsoft sees itself as a big company and allows themselves to make big changes. This may be a chance for *nix and *nux. However they may use other tactics to advertise and promote their products. Whether their management is good or bad, it's not like they're giving away the market easily.

[flyingfisch]

YUCK.

http://hothardware.c...In-Advertising/

[2072]

I tried to switch over to Linux a few years ago but I went back when I discovered I was spending more time tweaking the system to make it work as it should (best performances etc...) than actually using it... It probably evolved since I tried but the few GNU/Linux based computers I encounter still lake a great deal of flexibility compared to Windows or OSX ones. They are slow to boot and shutdown, plug and play is not really there, configuring something properly may take you hours of reading man pages, drivers are also generally less optimized than in Windows and have less options.

I think that the main problem preventing GNU/Linux from taking over the world is a common strategy among developers concerning the graphical user interface or even computer to human interaction as a whole. There is one for the command line interface which respect Unix' principles but graphical user interfaces are just not practical and are annoying to use. Every software has its own particularities and the real stuff always has to happen through command lines and very complex configuration files.

In other words you have to be a system administrator if you want to use the full potential of your computer...

I'm not interested in learning system administration so I can't use Linux on my personal computer. Microsoft seems to have solved their stability issues since windows XP Sp3 so I'm sticking with Windows for now...

[flyingfisch]

You should try a modern ubuntu version. Linux has really evolved over the last couple years.