Topic: Windows 8 Hailed As Next Big Thing, Technological Wonder

[trapeze]

Okay, that was just bait. Here is the story:

Calling the latest operating system a “failure” and Microsoft’s leaders “idiots,” a top tech website has proclaimed the PC era over. Windows is coming to a dead end, they say.

PC shipments collapsed in the last quarter by almost 14 percent, analysts with IDC said last week, marking the biggest drop in sales since the firm started tracking them 19 years ago. The problem, said ZDNet’s well respected Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, isn’t the designs from the likes of HP and Dell or the size of consumer’s wallets. It’s Microsoft.

And here's another one:

Most people in our recent debate over the future of Windows 8 thought that the operating system could be saved. I'm sure many people in 1491 thought that the Earth was flat, too.

The very day the debate came to an end, this headline appeared: IDC: Global PC shipments plunge in worst drop in a generation. Sure, a lot of that was due to the growth of tablets and smartphones and the rise of the cloud, but Windows 8 gets to take a lot of the blame too. After all, the debate wasn't whether or not Windows 8 was any good. It's not. The debate was over whether it could be saved.

Indeed even Microsoft defenders are no longer talking about Windows 8 in terms of a stand-alone project but instead they're spinning it as Windows 8 being "more like a living organism, made partly from familiar bits that have evolved over the last two decades, with several new strands of DNA tossed in. It’s due to be updated for more often, and it’s part of a much larger hardware-apps-services ecosystem that is also changing quickly."

Please. Changing too fast for the user-base was what turned many former Windows fans into Windows 8 haters. Some people think I've put too much emphasis on Windows 8's dismal Metro interface for why Windows 8 has failed. I don't think so. This isn't a matter of judging a book by its cover; the user interface (UI) is everything for computer users. If the UI alienates users, you lose them. It's as simple as that.

When I was part of the PC world I read Ziff Davis mags all the time. I thought that they were one of the best places to get the straight info on all things PC. They must absolutely hate Microsoft for putting ZD into extinction mode as regards anything about PCs.

Microsoft could revive Windows 7 sales, or make Aero Windows 8.x's interface, but from everything we can see about Windows 8.1, aka Blue, that's not what they're doing. Instead, Microsoft seems to be doubling down on Metro.

Idiots.

Witnessing death throes of an icon.

[Pandora]

It ought to die.  I'd like to help kill it myself.  With my bare hands.  Laughing maniacally.

Gunsmith got me a new laptop because the other one WOULD NOT switch to AC power half the time and this one has '8 on it and it does stuff that I do not wish nor purposely ask it to do.

And, trap! not one damn word about a Mac.

[trapeze]

And, trap! not one damn word about a Mac.

*me laughing maniacally*

[IronDioPriest]

Say a prayer for my good friend B. He left a stable and upwardly mobile job in communications because his skills were coveted by Microsoft, and they courted him with a salary his old employer could not match. He's a super-smart guy and a great sales manager. He didn't believe there was any risk in joining a behemoth like Microsoft. I haven't spoken with him about negative press because I know that he knows that everything rides on the success of Windows 8, and I don't want to bring him down when he needs to have a positive attitude. But I can tell he's been stressed.

[trapeze]

Poor guy. Not quite as bad as being hired by Fisker Automotive, say, about three months ago but still...I wouldn't go near the place if I was in computer/software tech. Elvis has already left the building.

[Pandora]

And, trap! not one damn word about a Mac.

*me laughing maniacally*

Yah, fine.  Just do it quietly.

[charlesoakwood]

Windows 7.  I have an ATT Air Card, recently had an issue that was politely resolved, they give good customer service.  Anyway, during the course of conversation it was said that Windows 8 will not work with their Air Cards but they were working on the software and the problem would soon be resolved.

Not networking with ATT to assure the two products are compatible, how stupid is that?  Incredible.  Windows 7 is OK, I'd sooner have XP Pro.  I'm ready for a Mac.  Maybe with this failure someone new will step into the gap.

[benb61]

I was recently pushed to Windows 7 at work, I don't like it as much as XP Pro.  It is not as intuitive.  And I only hear bad stuff about Win 8.

[Glock32]

Microsoft isn't going anywhere. They have far, far too many enterprise products that are invisible to the consumer user but mission critical to business users. I have no argument about Windows 8. What little bit of it I've used was painfully bad. I think they were trying to bring the mobile device paradigm onto the desktop PC and the resulting effort feels forced at best. I actually have had very few complaints about Windows 7. I think if MS wants to save their desktop OS they should just evolve with Windows 7 rather than having attempted to invent something entirely new. It's not unprecedented. Intel's Pentium 4 became a dead end technology. The current Core processor family is an evolution of the Pentium 3's architecture.

In another sense though, the PC "won" the battle from a hardware perspective. Things converged on Intel's X86 instruction set. Even the PC's arch rival, the Mac, is for all intents and purposes a PC put into Apple's aesthetic with a proprietary flavor of the BSD operating system. That observation may generate a big "So what?" nowadays, but at one time the Macolytes were enjoying the smell of their own farts while espousing the awesomeness of Motorola's RISC architecture.

[Libertas]

I have Win8, bites the big one, mostly those demonic swipe thingies that have overridden the 97 shell now and are once more making me curse like...when I was a sailor!   

[AlanS]

I have 7 on my laptop and have no problems. Just bought the wife a new desktop with 8. It REALLY sucks a big one. The worst case of code bloat I've ever seen.

[Alphabet Soup]

I have Win8, bites the big one, mostly those demonic swipe thingies that have overridden the 97 shell now and are once more making me curse like...when I was a sailor!   

Did you try the classic shell (start menu)?

[Libertas]

I have Win8, bites the big one, mostly those demonic swipe thingies that have overridden the 97 shell now and are once more making me curse like...when I was a sailor!   

Did you try the classic shell (start menu)?

Yup.

Blasted swipe keeps invading! 

[Glock32]

Those of you who are stuck with 8 and hating it, you should try putting Linux on a USB flash drive and booting up off of it to see if you like it. You can do that without committing to any changes on your system.  I use one for work with Ubuntu on it. It's handy because it gives me a portable OS and if I come across a machine suspected of containing some sort of malware I needn't bother with its installed OS.

[charlesoakwood]

OK, I download Linux to the thumb drive, I can do that but I how do I boot from the thumb instead of the installed hard drive?

[Glock32]

On most systems made in the past few years, if you repeatedly hit F12 when the system boots it should take you to a boot menu where you can specify the boot device.

[Libertas]

I'm somewhat clueless about this...do I download the 12.10 64-bit desktop version from here onto a flash drive and then start up & hit F12 and it is going to look like...what?

[Alphabet Soup]

They're recommending the 64-bit version if your system is new enough to support UEFI. If your computer is a couple of years old the 32-bit version will work fine.

What it will do is boot separately from your installed operating system and you will experience the fully functional Ubuntu desktop. I also utilize this "OS on a stick" for anonymous computing. When you use it the only tracker is your IP address - which can be masked, spoofed, and hijacked.

When you're done you shut down the PC, remove the stick and there is zero evidence that you were ever there.

[Libertas]

Huh, nice.  I have a new laptop I got back in December so I would think the 64-bit should work.  I'll give it a go tonight!   

[charlesoakwood]

This is getting better all the time.  Would you explain, masked, spoofed, and hijacked?