Microsoft’s Windows 9 Unveil Said To Be Coming September 30

TechCrunch ^ | August 21, 2014 | Darrell Etherington

[ConservingFreedom]

Windows 9 has been leaked, and seems to show a backing away from the aggressively touch-focused Windows 8, with a mini start menu and dropping of the Charms bar, but we’ll get a better look September 30, according to the Verge. The blog reports Microsoft is planning an official unveiling of what’s next for its desktop OS for that date, with a technology preview available for early adopters following quickly after that.

The upcoming Windows 9 release is codenamed ‘Threshold,’ and expectations are that we’ll see it arrive for the general public as a stable release sometime early next year. Previously, we covered what might be happening with the new release, which suggests that the desktop might be getting a return to glory in the new version – think more Windows 7 in your Windows 8 experience. Expectations are that Modern Windows (aka Metro) will still exist in the next generation, but it’ll be more closely integrated with the desktop side, with apps running in windowed mode instead of requiring you to switch between the two environments.

As a fairly frequent Windows user, but mostly on a desktop gaming PC, I’m excited about the new (old) direction Microsoft’s OS is apparently headed in – let’s hope they don’t go in a different direction what they actually unveil in late September.

[adorno]

Boot time on my Windows 8.1 machine is less than 12 seconds, and that machine is a 6 core AMD, with 2 TB hard-drive, and 16 GB main memory.

With Windows 7 in it, the same machine took about 2 minutes to boot up.

[zeugma]

My memory of XP is already hazy ... but doesn't 7 boot faster?

It always cracks me up to hear people talking about how fast windows boots. A properly designed operating system won't boot often enough for it to matter one way or another. If my computer only reboots every 6 months or year, I wouldn't care if it took 10 minutes to do so.

[adorno]

it’s not necesary for most people to have to get the latest just b/c the latest, exists

While true in a lot of cases, eventually, you have to upgrade, since, drivers become unsupported, and applications become unsupported, and support for new devices and components won't exist with the older OSes.

[oh8eleven]

I appreciate that, but I was responding to the FReeper who compared XP and Win7 and said there was no difference.
BTW, my Dell PC with Win7 is a year old and boots in less than 30 seconds.

[adorno]

Windows 9, now with less 8.

The ideas behind Windows 8 will still be there, but they'll be less intrusive and less mandatory, and you probably won't notice them.

Basically, the touch interface will still be necessary for future computing, so, Windows 8's introduction into touch computing will still be mandatory for a lot of devices.

[usconservative]

Apple, with their release of the latest iOS revision did the same. Far be it for Microsoft to be left behind, so they did the same.

Yes they did. Since I also use Apple products (iPad) I have to say I HATE the changes Apple made visually to iOS.

iOS 5.x and prior had a much richer, much more aesthetically pleasing interface to use. The new iOS incorporates tiny word-based links everywhere which are impossible for me to use without a stylus (I'm a big boy, large fingers --- and my vision impairment which makes depth perception difficult makes the new iOS really hard to use.)

I was so pissed at Apple when it came time to purchase a new smartphone (replacing my old "feature phone" blackberry knock-off) I went with a Samsung Galaxy S5 which allows me to customize (read that ENLARGE) the fonts on the phone to a usable size to me. I only purchased that phone last week Tuesday and am already using my iPad mini and iPad 2 less and less as the days go by.

UI's are somewhat "personal" and the ability to customize them to the way one wants to work is really key. In many ways, Microsoft lost that in Windows 8. Yes, some of those customizations or ablity to create them are now back, however IMO going back to a Windows 7/Aeroglass rich UI would win many customers back.

As I said above in this thread, I really prefer Windows 8 from a performance and resource utilization perspective. It is very efficient in CPU and memory consumption and overall so much faster than Windows 7. Did enough of those benchmarks to know that's true, and I see those performance differences every day. From a UI perspective, IMO it sucks rocks. Putting Win7 Aeroglass UI back on top of Windows 8 while keeping Windows 8's performance gains would really be "the best of both worlds" for Microsoft desktop OS Users and Microsoft's bottom line.

Again, IMO.

Appreciate our back-and-forth here today. :-)

[A CA Guy]

Quick question.
Niece has a new quad core laptop with windows 8 and 6 gigs if ram.
She says the computer is running slow.

I am going to check it out, but I am going to make sure stupid things are turned off through msconfig and I am also going to make sure some lame virus program isn't running.

I've been dealing with computers since punch cards and have even android tablets these days and am not a total fossil when dealing with electronics, but in regard things to turn off and look out for with w8, any serious suggestions?

I told her already to get a different browser, and if need be we may wipe 8 out of her computer if I don't speed it up the traditional way.

[adorno]

With FR posters, it's hard to tell what's humor and what's real.

With so many MS haters around, one cannot take any post for granted.

BTW,it's not that I love Microsoft or Windows; it's just that I like hearing the facts, rather than some biased opinion not based on the real facts.

[adorno]

Never cared about Aeroglass. I actually disabled it.

Some things, no matter how nice it makes the desktop look, are useless and wasteful of resources.

[adorno]

Active Directory and File/Print, are just a couple, but Munich had a lot more issues, including trying to use the FOSS Libre Office, which had many incompatibilities with file formats. There were other issues, and perhaps your company doesn’t have the same kind of issues as Munich had.

[usconservative]

With FR posters, it's hard to tell what's humor and what's real.

Agree, which is why I marked the post as (/humor) at the end .... (at least I thought I did ..)

[usconservative]

We're a little different. We're heavy on the web-based apps and much of our application environment is Java based.

The harder part to transition is what you alluded to: document file format incompatabilities. I do not know how many millions upon millions upon millions of documents we have sitting out on file servers or in our online archive's would require some form of conversion for one reason or another, to work with something other than Microsoft Office.

It's MS Office that's keeping our desktop's Windows. Documents, spreadsheets (with macro's and embedded vbscript) along with departmental databases in MS Access that people use pretty much every day guarantees a Microsoft based desktop at this point. Hard to convert tens of thousands of users over to something else without really impacting productivity.

[-YYZ-]

I’ve said all along that Windows 8 Metro UI might be a good thing on tablets, convertibles, and touch screen laptops for casual users. For desktop users the Metro UI brought absolutely nothing desirable to the table, and in fact was a step backwards. I’m still completely dumbfounded as to what possessed them to put the Win8 UI in Windows Server 2012.

[MayflowerMadam]

“I still have users stubbornly clinging to WordPerfect.”

WordPerfect...that would be me. WordPerfect for DOS was better than Word is now. When WP “went Windows” it lost functionality. Sprint by Borland also was better than Word is.

[adorno]

Reality is that, Windows and MS Office have become standards, and standards often require that others stick with the standards.

Switching just for spite, and because someone just doesn't like Microsoft's lock-in, could be very costly; so costly that, sticking with Microsoft might be the less costly option, and most effective one too.

The only solution to lock-in, is to have a standard what is open to all developers and software makers, and that doesn't require patent fees to use. Until that happens, Microsoft and Windows and Office, will remain what most people consider the "standards".

[oh8eleven]

I am going to make sure stupid things are turned off through msconfig
The only program I allow in the Start Up list is the anti-virus program ... and I probably don't even need to do that.
I do not use IE, I use Waterfox (64 bit version of Firefox) as a browser.
Have you checked her PC with Malwarebytes?
Have you tried What's Running?

[A CA Guy]

It’s a new computer my niece has just gotten. If it were going for a month I would conclude virus, but this is right out of the package.

I will check the offending computer out in two or so days. Usually the biggest offender of everything is a virus program in the operation of scanning a hard drive.

IMO, unless you go for Russian sites or porn you are not going to often get a virus. Also don’t click ads.

I have run clean through a wireless modem without a virus program for years without a hitch.

[Enlightened1]

Wow Microsoft is throwing the towel on Windows 8.

[A CA Guy]

I do have a copy of malewarebytes for when we need it. Great, I agree.
I can look at task manager and figure out the things that should not be running more or less, but every generation has a new bug.

[Enlightened1]

You nailed it on the head. I agree with you 100%.