Windows: It’s over, tech site declares

Fox News ^ | April 16, 2013

[Olog-hai]

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.

“Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed,” Vaughn-Nichols wrote in an essay on the site. “Microsoft is betting all its chips on the silly notion that Metro will be the one true interface for its entire PC and device line.”

“Idiots,” he wrote. …

[FreeAtlanta]

The turning off thing is a good argument. I don’t know what they were thinking. Alt-F4 from the non-Start screen is my easiest out.

[FreeAtlanta]

from the start screen, without doing anything other than typing, type in the app you want. example; notepad

[BobL]

“I’m willing to change with the times when the change is better and not change for change’s sake.”

Thanks all...I think that clown was using a debate tactic meant to make the other side feel inferior.

Here’s his post...see last paragraph:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3007697/posts?page=31#31

My response is Post 40.

[adorno]

If I bring up a picture I can’t shut it and just go back to where I was.

So, just because you haven't been able to figure out how to get back to where you were, is no reason to bash the system.

My wife has a similar situation a while ago, when she was viewing some pictures and a movie with our granddaughters in them, and when she started cursing the system because she couldn't end the application, I just showed her how one single button would bring her back to where she was, and she could then close the application from there. It's all a matter of usage, and discovery, and getting used to it. After a few days with Windows 8, I've decided that, going back to Windows 7 Pro would be completely nuts.

[HomeAtLast]

Yeah, that must be it...slow learning. :D

[adorno]

With a new UI they'd probably be best off using something like the Win98 startup/intro screen with three options 1) set to the classic mode, 2) use the new UI mode, 3) a tutorial for the new-UI mode.

Perhaps. But, there is no need for that. It's quite easy to navigate from the Start screen and into the desktop that people have come to love and appreciate. It's still there, and works the same, and even faster.

However the biggest notion coming from Microsoft is that,the desktop will eventually go away, and if that's to be the case, there won't be a need to allow people the different options you suggested. Getting used to the way the Start screen works, is not something that requires a degree. Even a pre-school child can learn how to use the Start screen, and if need be, to get to the desktop.

[adorno]

Yeah, that must be it...slow learning

I knew it!

;)

[adorno]

Keep telling yourself that your customers are wrong and see where that gets you.

Oftentimes, the customers are wrong, and they can be a pain in the behind. Contrary to the popular saying, the customer isn't always right.

Change can be difficult for a lot of people, even it the change itself isn't really difficult.

[adorno]

ALL operating systems suck.

Yet, where can you find a computer without an OS?

The hobby kits from the 1970s aren't around anymore, and the last computer that I worked on that didn't have an OS controlling things, was one where I had to enter a set of instructions, manually, through a few buttons and switches and dials on the outside of the computer box, and that was back in the late 1960s, with an NCR computer. Those aren't around anymore, and I, just like the rest of the world, have had to move on and, I now have to put up with those darn OSes.\

When it comes to the jumbled mess that "metro" is, that's a matter of opinion, and you don't have to use it. Just go with something designed to be used even by the little kiddies, like iOs.

For me, the Start screen is even easier than iOS or Android. It's just a matter of taste, and of opinion.

[RegulatorCountry]

Continuing to market a product toward which people have expressed bewilderment, annoyance and dislike merely because somebody on the carpet in the executive suite thought it’d be kewl and make a great Powerpoint presentation to show everything with matching UI, is hardheadedness, otherwise known as Ballmer.

Even the Edsel was changed due to popular distaste. Too late, though. It’s not as if there are no recognized principles behind good UI design. Microsoft violated them, trying to be different, to make a much-needed splash in the marketplace after several high-profile disappointments. The gamble didn’t pay out. Take the opportunity to respond to your customers while you still have them.

[Still Thinking]

adorno, you seemed to find my previous explanation of "metro" confusing, and homeatlast asked if it was similar to Vista, so maybe a pictorial comparison will better explain:

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Rumor: Microsoft Bringing Back the Start Button With Windows Blue

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417855,00.asp

[Cheerio]

Usability considerations for a PC are much different than for a tablet, and mobile phones. One size does not fit all.

Could not agree more. I went the tablet route but after a short attempt to master its use, gave it to my grandson - I just could not overcome the surface "KEYBOARD", so called.

On my powerful PC I installed a dual boot Win 7/Win 8 'Preview' and hated 8. I dumped the Win 8 and will NOT buy the commercial full release until they reinstall the "START" button. Win 8 appears to be designed for a touch screen - nothing else makes sense for upgrading to it. I am not going to spend $500-$800 for a large touch screen monitor.

I have used all windows since 3.1 (excluding ME) and IMHO the best are XP and 7 by far. Neither crash like earlier Windows - e.g. Win 98SE BSOD - and the repair console is excellent.

[quimby]

there is no more closed environment than you will find with Apple and with the Android system, which are all about locking people in with the unending number of apps in the apps stores.

Your statement is somewhat confusing, but apple and android are different. apple IOS is closed. only apps from the app store will load. But in android, you can use the play store and load non-play store apps. Try loading a custom keyboard on your i[phone/ipad...

[ArrogantBustard]

Just go with something designed to be used even by the little kiddies, like iOs.

You seem to have a lot emotionally invested in this. Did you write it?

[adorno]

Continuing to market a product toward which people have expressed bewilderment

Do you really believe that's the way the powers at the top think at Microsoft. That would indeed be foolish and stupid.

Microsoft, like most other companies that have to answer to a user base, did a lot of focus groups, and they tested and retested, and presented and presented again, to those focus groups. They coded and tested, and modified the product, thousands of times, before they thought that they had a product they could present to the "testing" public, with their few pre-RTM releases of Windows 8. There were a few million people who downloaded those pre-release versions, and there were hundreds of thousands of tests, and suggestions, which Microsoft did take into consideration. I was one of those guinea pigs and my experiences with the OS were recorded, and problems and suggestions from me and the other millions, were indeed taken into consideration before a final product was released to the public.

Fact is that, there will never be such a thing as a perfect product that please everyone, and perhaps not even the majority, but, no one can deny that Microsoft didn't take into consideration the input from the many focus groups and from the "at home" testers. Windows 8 is probably the most tested software in history, prior to launch.

But, like all other things, you don't have to like Windows 8, and the problems that it is encountering right now, is with sales, and not with functionality. When it comes to Windows 8, it's problems with the numbers, is not the OS, but with the sales of the computers themselves. If the computers aren't selling, then it's not necessarily a problem with the OS. The biggest reason for slow sales of "Windows 8" PCs, is the rotten economy, which means that, most people aren't going to be plunking down some $800 plus on a PC in hard economic times. The tablets are easier to sell when they only cost some $200-$300. PCs aren't that cheap, and can't compete on cheap.

[ArrogantBustard]

ROFL!!!!

I can kinda relate to "I'm UNIX" there ...

[zeugma]

They even put the Metro UI on Windows *Server*, for crying out loud.

I heard about that. Weird. What does a server need other than a serial console?

[steve86]

I haven’t used a desktop in 15 years, and I can’t imagine why anyone would.

Sure, let's run the FR server on a tablet, no problem.

And try to cram a specialized scientific data acquisition card (or numerous others) into a laptop.

Not everyone has your modest consumer-level requirements.

[adorno]

You seem to have a lot emotionally invested in this.

Is that the best you can do? I need to have an ulterior motive to write what I do?

Nope, I don't have a personal stake in Windows or in Microsoft. I just hate the massive number of misinformation that proliferates the internet, and the pronouncements of the death of the PC and/or Windows, are highly exaggerated, and without real cause.

I personally didn't have an emotional connection with what Clinton did, or with what Obama is doing. But, I will attack each and every thing they do, if it's full of falsehoods and damaging situations for the country. I tend to prefer the facts and truth. Not hearsay nor falsehoods. I prefer reports which have solid support, and the nuttiness that one hears about the post-PC era, or the problems with Windows 8, aren't based on pure facts.