So Windows 8 debuts to a resounding chorus of "meh".
Remember: Microsoft releases a functional OS only on every other attempt, so if history is any judge, this one’s doomed from the jump-off.
(Myself? I ran 98SE until I switched to XP in '02, and then clung to XP up until I bought this laptop earlier this year. Windows versions are like Star Trek movies: Every other one's a dog.)
For you kids who are fortunate enough to be too young to grok the graphic: Behold the suck.
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I was fine with XP and I found that Windows 7 set up on my computers flawlessly and with an impreesive ease of use.
ReplyDeleteI'm in no rush to "upgrade".
Mike
I hung on to 2000Pro like grim death until I was forced to upgrade to XP to keep up with my favorite games. OK, "forced" may not be the right word there. Anyway, I'm still running XP, but probably not for much longer. And the "every other one" pattern of Windows dogs is as true as gravity.
ReplyDeletePaul
Not only that but anyone who runs with an MS OS the first year it's out is, frankly, a free beta tester.
ReplyDeleteNever install anything until Sp1, save yourself a load of grief.
That also saves you from issues like Vista.
I just went to seven a few months ago, but I still have half a dozen machines in the house on XP. I will never upgrade the broken laptop that runs as a music server downstairs. The power cord is taped to it, the monitor hinges have broken, and a couple of the keys are missing. Why would I pay for a new OS on that?
ReplyDeleteSame with the netbooks, as long as Firefox runs on them, along with Office 2007 or whatever is on them, I don't care. And if somehow that stops working then I'll go back into Linux land and get me a good stripped Ubuntu and run Open Office or google docs.
Aw, come on. Windows ME and Vista were awesome!
ReplyDeleteI dual-boot linux (Ubuntu) for my day-to-day usage, and Windows for games and iTunes. When I got my new computer last year, it came with Win7. Hopefully, that will last me until Win9 comes out and fixes the idiocy of Win8.
ReplyDeleteI did load the preview versions of Win8 on my old computer, just to get a look at it. If you think the MetroUI is bad with a mouse, try it with a laptop trackpad.
I'm the office geek where I work. My biggest fear is that when the next computer is up for replacement we won't be able to get it with Win7, and I'll end up having to try and teach someone how to do everything in Win8.
Mac OS for me folks. I still have to do some things for work in Windows and it always feels like pushing a gutter nail into a 4x4 with my forehead. That's after I upgrade the 4x4 and nail first of course.
ReplyDeleteI can't wrap my head around when installing an OS, having to update, reboot and update what I just updated, rinse repeat for the next 4 hours. Who the hell thinks like that?
W8 isn't *too* bad, well, except for that whole missing start button thing. I simply switch to the "classic" desktop to do my work. But the tile layout is the stupidest desktop ui idea since dos.
ReplyDeleteBill has perfected the art of getting the public to pay for the privilege of being his beta test site.
ReplyDeleteNice work if you can get it.
BOB?
ReplyDeleteOoooh yes I remember that...Like Clippy on #$%$#% steroids, I still recall swearing out loud after have clippy made it's damn re-appearance after trying for an hour or two to kill it.
You'd think you'd gotten the litle feffer and then suddenly there'd be be again!
Zombie software with a smile. Kept coming back.
To MS's credit they killed Bob right fast, and it stayed dead.
We did get Comic Sans font out of the Bob debacle ...
ReplyDeleteOverhearing an Idaho gun-blogger who codes for MS when he was questioned about it, it sounded like 8 was designed for Tablets and Pads, not desktops...
ReplyDeleteAnd Tam wins the internets for the Trek ref!
ReplyDeleteMe, I still run one box with Win2000, which is rock solid and stable for the few apps I use on it. I have an XP pro box here, and I use 7 at the office, which is plenty good. My file server is Linux. You can't do hard engineering on a Mac, and most business software is written for PC's. So I'm stuck with it, like it or not, until such time as I can avoid the company of computers altogether.
ReplyDeleteThis post - and the comments thread - is full of Win.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, #1 Son uses bootcamp on his mac to boot Windows 8, which seems wrong or something.
But NotClauswitz is right: Ballmer is betting the company on tablets and phones. I'm not sure how much we'll hear about W8 suckage over the next month or two, because no corporate IT shop will touch it and so there will be no context for comparison like there was on previous Windows versions.
But when you consider that Apple makes more from just iPhone than Mocrosoft makes on everything, that's all you need to know.
What will be much more interesting than folks bitching that the Start button is gone will be W8 tablet vs. iPad. Microsoft is famous for its tenacity:
Version 1.0: It's a toy, a bad joke.
Version 2.0: Well, it sucks, but it's improved a lot.
Version 3.0: This is actually usable.
Of course it's been a while since Microsoft did anything like this, but when you consider that they never really innovated much (but just chased a leader like Lotus, Netscape, etc) having Apple to shoot at may be a net plus for them.
And hey, this will be the most secure Windows ever!!!
"this will be the most secure Windows ever!!!"
ReplyDeleteObscurity is no guarantee of security - though admittedly it can help.
I just bought Win8. It's a little strange, but fun. I was a linux guy until Windows 7, which has been really great. I've run the Win8 beta for a while now, it's pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteVista was fine.
ReplyDeleteIf you weren't trying to use ancient legacy hardware that nobody'd written a modern driver for*.
Windows 8 is by all appearances perfectly fine for even power-user types if you turn off Metro and use something like RetroUI.
(Also, "every other attempt" only even vaguely holds in the non-pro line. NT4 was good. 2K was good. XP was good, and unified the product line.)
(* And it was a huge improvement in security ... which made people angry, because now they couldn't just runs as Administrator all the time by default and leave their system wide open to trojans.
UAC was new and people hate new - but it was better by far than the XP security model, just like the new driver model was a huge improvement in stability and security.
The only reason there was no outcry over Win 7 over "nothing works with it" there is that by the time it came out people had stopped trying to use the hardware that didn't have drivers for a modern OS, and vendors finally figured out that really, yes, they needed to have drivers.
Because it has the same driver model, and indeed often the same drivers as Vista did.
But "Vista sucked and 7 was fine"...)
What I'm really waiting for is the Nokia 920. I HATE my freaking iPhone and any and all iProducts. Android is hacker crap. Windows Phone 8 looks legit. Hurry up Nokia!
ReplyDeleteVista did kinda suck. Slow, missing features, I dual booted during the Vista year but mostly ran Linux then.
ReplyDeleteI just now started to get used to the Windows 7 interface, and now they've gone and changed the interface again with Windows 8.
ReplyDeleteI guess the smart-phone/tablet style interfaces are fine for such devices, but I would HATE to have one on a desktop (and no, desktops AREN'T going away, they've said that crap for years and it still isn't happening).
Oh well, I'm sure Windows 7 will still be supported for another couple of years. I'll cross the upgrade bridge when I get to it. Maybe one of my favorite UNIX-like OSes will be up to daily use by then and I can ditch MS all-together. Really, there are a few that are probably already there. I just have to take the time to learn how to work with them.
s
"Vista was fine.
ReplyDeleteIf you weren't trying to use ancient legacy hardware that nobody'd written a modern driver for*."
Speaking as someone who got stuck having to buy a brand new computer that shipped with Vista, I have to strongly disagree. It was slow and buggy, even on a computer built to work with it. (I found UAC to be irritating, but tolerable. It was certainly not my biggest issue with Vista.) I never had to deal with any driver issues, but it still sucked hairy donkey balls.
"Windows 8 is by all appearances perfectly fine for even power-user types if you turn off Metro and use something like RetroUI."
RetroUI doesn't replace Metro, it only makes 8 go straight to the legacy desktop. It looks like if you use it to lock out the Metro features, you'll also lose a lot of functionality. It also doesn't replace the Metro start screen, so if you want that functionality without using Metro, you have to buy yet another piece of 3rd party software.
Metro seems like a decent phone and tablet UI, but it's not a good UI for desktop computers, and it's certainly not good for the vast majority of business or professional use.
Carnaby, give it up. Nokia was betrayed by Microsoft in Winphone. An epic betrayal of Nokia by Ballmer that will finally push aside the German WWI "stabbed in the back" excuse once and for all.
ReplyDeleteHey ... I used windows ME for a while ... it worked fine on the particular mother board I had bought it for.
ReplyDeleteStuart the Viking,
ReplyDelete"(and no, desktops AREN'T going away, they've said that crap for years and it still isn't happening)."
Are you kidding? The desktop is dead! With the dawn of the internet, we'll all be using thin clients soon; Larry Ellison said so! (Almost twenty years ago... :D Any day now!)
Hey, 20 years ago they said we'd have fusion in 20 years....
ReplyDeleteFusion power is 20 years in the future ... and always will be.
ReplyDeleteThe every-other-OS rule isn't one: Windows 3.1, 95, NT 3.5, 98, 98SE, NT4.
ReplyDeleteAlso, having used it for a year, I think the new start screen is significantly better than the start menu, which has sucked ever since Vista when Microsoft limited the size of it.
Guys, the desktop's still there. Most people put desktop shortcuts and pinned taskbar items for the things they use regularly, and once you do that, you don't need the start screen except for rarely-used items.
As for not upgrading, well, 8 tweaks the scheduler in ways that let parts of the system sleep a lot more, which should dramatically increase battery life for laptop users.
I held out upgrading to XP until 2007. I ran 2k on all of my machines, except the wife's which was 98SE. By '07 Service Pack 2 was out and XP was stable.
ReplyDeleteI still run XP pro on on my wife's machine because HP decided not to release a new scanner driver for our $500 professional quality scanner, instead coughing up a generic hairball driver that doesn't support all of the scanner's features.
I will admit to early adopting Windows 7, but only because it was really Vista Service pack renamed. It is uniformly excellent.
Running Win7 pro with XP mode installed, I can run literally every program I've ever owned for Windows. Right down to Windows Entertainment pack for Win 3.0 that I bought for my 286.
Actually, i think they're betting on all-in-ones with touch screens replacing desktops.
ReplyDeleteI'll be the Odd Duck Out and dissent a bit.
ReplyDeleteWindows 8 is a pretty radical step for MS. They had to get away from the Start Button/Desktop GUI they've had going since Windows 95 and come up with something that's better suited for touchscreens and tablets while also working well for mouse/keyboard control, and the new Metro GUI does the job better than I expected.
Most people who are going to hate it will hate it because it requires unlearning precisely the Start/Desktop paradigm, but I've futzed around with Win 8 for a day or two, and it really doesn't take more than an hour or two to pick up the new interface. It's different, but it's not bad at all. It's a much bigger paradigm shift for Windows than the OS 9/OS X shift was for Apple, and it's surprisingly daring for a calcified company that has been coasting on Windows and Office revenues for decades now.
I'll futz with it some more, but so far it's interesting because it's a radically different approach to the desktop OS interface. The only jarring thing is the transition from the Metro UI to apps that run in the old desktop environment--that truly feels like you're shifting between two entirely different operating systems on the same box. But if you stay in metro apps, it's an interesting preview of what Windows 9 will turn out to be, and it's a lot more radical than what Apple did with OS X.
And now that I've read the link I still don't know what (or who) Bob is.
ReplyDeleteNot a young'un, just a luddite.
Also: holy shit, don't make me dig up a bunch of Google-fu from October 2001 about how the general computer-using public and most of the geek tribe were just in arms about Windows XP and its Fisher-Price interface.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I've been running 7 for a few months now, and I've got to say that I was happier with Server 2008 (Vista).
ReplyDeletePeople love to hate on Vista, but most of what they complain about isn't the fault of Microsoft's code: it's the fault of bad third party code, namely that from Nvidia and ATI/AMD. Microsoft pulled a stupid and pushed Vista out the door before the graphics card manufacturers had time to refine their drivers. If you look at the crash reports for Vista, you'll find that something like 90% of them were due to buggy graphics card drivers.
The only real gripe I had with Vista was that it wasn't bit-transparent. In layman's terms, that means that it introduced artifacts (mostly clipping) into active audiostreams.
B.S. Philosopher - you said that "Running Win7 pro with XP mode installed, I can run literally every program I've ever owned for Windows."
ReplyDeleteHow about old games like Wing Commander or Grandest Fleet? I'm still searching for a new OS that play those old games.
Use DOSbox, Alan. Or buy from Good Old Games (gog.com). They sell a bunch of old DOS classics already packaged with DOSbox. I'm running the old Wing Commander III on my Core i3 in Windows 7 Pro.
ReplyDeleteEhh .. who needs dosbox?
ReplyDeleteSid Meier has redone XCOM UFO for Win 7.
http://www.xcom.com/enemyunknown/
Sigivald:
ReplyDeleteWhat I heard about the driver issue back then was that MS was charging so much to license a driver for each peripheral, that pretty much everyone decided to only pay for their current production items, and the hell with legacy stuff.
I have to echo the sentiment that Vista is slow regardless of what it's on. I've dealt with two computers that CAME with Vista on it and the OS is a LOT slower than Linux or Win7.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with the Metro interface in Win8 (and that's pretty much my only problem with Win8) is that it seems like it's harder to multitask. Even in Linux, I always have it set up so I have the bar on the bottom with all of the things I have open - Chrome, a music player, some kind of coding program (Programmer's Notepad 2 in Win7, GEdit in Linux), command line window...
Hell, the difficulty between switching things - and how utterly LONG it took - is why I hate Unity so much. Had to borrow a friend's computer with the latest Ubuntu on it once...hated Unity with a fiery passion within five minutes and never faded, even after several hours.
I either missed or repressed the memory of Bob. My first PC was a win 95 one(before that I had Amiga)... no memory of Bob though.
ReplyDeleteI switched to Win 7 from XP... this month... because XCOM.
Silver--I switched my Linux boxes from Ubuntu to Lubuntu for that reason. It's the lean and fast sibling of Ubuntu. My netbook's Lubuntu install runs at 130MB idle, and all the tasks are in the bar at the bottom.
ReplyDelete+1 on the DOSbox for DOS games Alan. Windows 7 XP Mode is primarily for Windows based games and legacy programs. I use it to run the aforementioned Microsoft games pack as well as some other titles like Civilization II that spanned the 16/32 bit changeover in Windows. A lot of the old games still used 16 bit installers which won't run in a 64 bit OS.
ReplyDeleteMicrosoft removed the 16 bit "thunking" code in 64 bit versions of Windows. You can still run 16 bit Windows code in 32 bit versions of Windows, but there are other tradeoffs, primarily limiting your Ram to >4GB.