point well made .. deja' vu all over again, ehh ? !
Posted on 01/13/2014 11:40:15 AM PST by SeekAndFind
SOFTWARE COBBLER Microsoft might be ready to abandon Windows 8 earlier than it planned in an attempt to reverse the slide in its fortunes.
The company might announce Windows 9 as early as April, reports claim, as it tries to distance itself from the poorly received Windows 8.
We reported on Friday that the Threshold project was being tipped as a major update for Windows 8, however according to Winsupersite it will instead be billed as a new Windows operating system version slated for release in April 2015.
Although the launch of Windows 8 has not been the disaster that Windows Vista was, this would confirm that Windows 8 has been another failure for the company and make Windows 9 another "do or die" product for Microsoft like Windows 7.
Big changes are likely to be in store for the new "Modern" interface that has been criticised for its lack of integration with the traditional Windows desktop environment. Many aspects of the "Modern" user interface have a tacked on feel to traditional Windows PC users, but without enough innovation to lure new ones.
Other major changes that have alienated users include the withdrawal of support for DVD playback out of the box, which is now a premium feature limited to Professional Edition users. Perhaps the most discussed change, however is the removal of the traditional Start Menu, which Microsoft considered uncecessary but has been the subject of a continuing campaign by users lobbying for its return.
A Start Button was reintroduced in Windows 8.1 along with a host of other features designed to answer the many critics of the operating system, however the new Start Button is simply a toggle switch between the "Modern" and traditional Windows Desktop interfaces and has failed to placate most users.
Paul Thurrott, the blogger who runs Winsupersite said that work on Windows 9 has not yet begun, so there will be no early version of it available at Microsoft's Build conference in April, although it's likely that there will be opportunities to work with the upgrade that's been leaked for the Windows 8.1 service pack.
Discussions like this are so stupid.
Somebody sets up a point of view as the beginning point for the argument, and everybody follows along, like lemmings.
I have 3 PCs at home, one a desktop and 2 laptops, and all 3 have Windows 8.1 running, and none of them have had any problems at all, and that includes from the time that it used to be just Windows 8.
And I have had no problems at all with using the PCs in desktop mode, or with the new UI (formerly known as Metro).
Windows 8/8.1 is the best Windows OS ever, and it’s still a lot better than any other OS around, including Linux or any Mac OS version. And it’s faster and more capable than ever before.
People get used to doing the simple tablets thing, and then can’t come back to learning how to do things the PC way, which is not really that more difficult to use than any tablet or smartphone.
Geez, people! Grow some brains already!
And, the way one of the quoted articles above reads, it sounds like Windows 8 only has 25 million users, but that’s very far from the truth. Back in may of last year, reports were that Windows 8 already had over 100 million licenses sold, and by now, you can be sure that it’s way over that figure. And, once XP becomes unsupported, in about 3 months, people will be left with no choice but to upgrade to a much better OS, that being Windows 8.1 or whatever version exists at the time.
Get acquainted with the OS people, and you’ll notice that, the stupid articles denigrating Windows 8 are all a bunch of hooey.
I find that most of the complaints about Windows 8 are about :
1) The disappearance of the ‘START’ button ( which was returned in the 8.1 version )
2) The unfamiliar Metro Interface ( which the complainants do not want to bother to learn or familiarize themselves with ).
3) The fact that they like Windows 7
That’s all !!!
The Metro interface was a bridge too far, IMHO. Parts of it are usable, even on a server, but what Microsoft did to force the user to use it showcased its deficiencies in an embarrassing manner. Even once you're past the learning curve, the deficiencies are still there.
The fact is that the formidable iPad scared the heck out of the Microsoft marketeers and a bunch of their crystal-ball gazers insisted that what the world needed was a tablet interface for everything. The argument that you can improve it with this third-party app of that is really beside the point. They blew it, IMHO, they threw the baby out with the bath-water.
I'd be perfectly happy with Win9 if it gives me what Win7 did with the under-the-hood improvements of Win8, but I'm not going to write their user interface for them. They can do better than that because they already have.
No, it was not the Start Button that people wanted back, it was the Start Menu. Hello? And the menu didn’t come back in 8.1 - only the button, and all it does is flip to desktop mode. Who bloody cares? It was the menu that was nice.
If radically changing the desktop user interface, from one that worked extremely well on the desktops, to one that only made sense on a handheld mobile, sounds like a good business plan, you’d better think again. Microsoft had the desktop world in the palm of its hand. What fools, to think they could destroy that and not have people walk away?
Of course we like Win 7! It works and it’s familiar and Win 8 is not an improvement in any characteristic that is meaningful to a desktop user.
And BTW Adorno, the reason you’re confused about the uptake of Win 8.1 is that you’re parroting the MS sales party line about how “licenses sold” is equal to “people using it”. Horse pucky. And you know it. Shame on you for pushing that line of crap.
When people are using an OS it shows in the real results from the web services who know how to measure it. It ain’t just how many licenses MS managed to foist on resellers, many if not most of which are sitting on shelves.
I’m sorry, all I read was “you’re right, but let me add to the cliché”.
Thanks for proving my point all the same.
The points you mentioned are not really worth complaining about.
First off, Windows 8/8.1 is the same as Windows 7 on steroids. Windows 8 is faster, and still lets people work in desktop mode. The new UI doesn’t even have to be used. The START button was basically unnecessary, and it was rarely used by the majority of people. But, to a lot of people, especially the complaining tech bloggers, it was a means towards attacking Windows and Microsoft. The START button is and was there, in Windows 8 and 8.1. It just looks different, and it’s in the “new” UI. Just click on the application, and voila!!!, the program opens up, either on the “old” desktop mode, or in the new UI version, depending upon whether the app is designed for the new UI or still functions as in the old desktop mode.
So, basically, your list is nothing more than excuses to attack Windows.
The Menu was an option which was rarely used by the majority of people; but it’s still available in the new UI, which is just a more graphical representation of the old START menu.
The desktop didn’t go away, and it’s still there, looking and working like before. Whatever applications worked on the old desktop mode, still work the same.
Microsoft still “owns” the desktop/laptop world with Windows 8. There is nothing out there to replace it. The fact that there have been fewer PCs being sold for the last 3 years cannot be blamed on Windows 8, since it’s been around for just about a year, and the slowdown in sales has been ongoing for more than 3 years.
Windows 7 was great. But, Windows 7 is still available in Windows 8, but to get there, it just requires a simple click or touch of a button to get there; alternately, just open up an application that worked on the old desktop mode, and voila!!!, instant desktop mode. That ain’t that difficult to do, and people are just looking for excuses to bash Windows and/or Microsoft.
Your attack on me for “defending” Windows and/or Microsoft, is completely unwarranted. All that I did was to try to correct the record as reported by the articles attacking Windows 8. The sales records are not mine, and I quote, just like everybody else, what others put out, including Microsoft and other companies that do the sales studies. Fact is that by now, Windows 8 is being used in a lot more than 100 million PCs or tablet-PCs, and more are being sold as we speak, and with the ceasing of support for XP, Windows 8 will be in more than 200 million PCs/tablets by next year.
That idea that “licenses sold” is not the same as Windows instances installed, is completely wrong. Licenses sold into the distribution channels all eventually become sold and installed and used. Even if they are held on shelves by the OEMs for eventual installation and sales, they are on the way towards usage. “Licenses sold” works the same for all PCs and tablets and smartphones. The only way to get at the true usage numbers, is to go out and do a survey of every home and consumer and business.
BTW, most internet traffic still shows IE and Windows to be the biggest sources of that traffic. Smartphones and tablets are still way behind, by a lot, and Linux and Mac OS hardly even register.
So, you couldn’t be more wrong on all your points and comments. Facts are way different from what you believe or perceive or have been led to believe.
I’ve been thinking of doing the same thing in my car.
Stock audio in my Subaru STI sucks.
I was on the Intel validation team when many of the 486 processors came out.
At one time we had 50 separate versions all based on the same die.
For instance, the difference between the DX and DX2 was a wire bond option which made the core run at 2x speed.
Naming all the parts was much easier than validating all the possible permutations.
Here at Intel, we had many internal programs which didn’t work under W8.
It was averaging 2 weeks for each user to fix all the problems caused by W8 migration.
Many file viewers like Adobe which only ran in Maximize mode and no “x” to close window. You had to run Task Manager to kill it off.
(they finally fixed it)
I agree that for home users, your three items were the extent of W8 problems. For large corporations, the problems were much bigger.
What was confusing was differernces between SX and DX versions going from 386 to 486. It also wasn’t very intuitive that the 486DX ran at base clock speed, and DX2 was clock-doubled, but the clock-tripled version was designated DX4 instead of DX3.
Bluetooth-capable head unit is all you need to get started.
Will 10 be far behind?
Linux sure, but not OSX.
OSX is not even capable of doing half the things that Windows has to do. Windows supports thousands of different configurations, while OSX is limited to supporting only the few configurations which Apple deems that consumers need.
Ahh you wind the wayback machine way back.
This is the true story you have not heard elsewhere.
386SX vs 386DX
These where completely different die with the SX having a 16bit external bus and DX having a 32bit external bus
Internally they were nearly identical with no internal FPU.
None had an internal cache.
All 486 with the exception of the 486SX had and internal FPU. All had internal cache which was the big performance boost.
Very early 486SX had the FPU disabled but it was removed soon after intro. It was the only difference between SX-DX.
All this SX-DX nonsense was done as AMD had captured 60% of the 386 market and Intel wanted it all back by moving to 486 in a comparable price point.
During all this time, Intel was pouring tones of money into what would become “Pentium” and they just wanted to hang on till it came out.
When it was late, they came up with the DX4 as a stop gap.
It wasn’t called DX3 because DX4 sounded better.
Again all of the 486 naming issues were mostly marketing decisions designed to hang on till Pentium arrived.
Getting the first Pentium out the door was much harder than was reported.
All of this is old news and reported publicly but since you asked I thought I’d give you the history.
486 project was kind of fun.
Pentium was really really tough.
Oh, never mind.
point well made .. deja' vu all over again, ehh ? !
that it was, ol'timer, that it was !
8/.1 seems to think that 500x500 icons should be all the rage with the kewl kids and voila!!!, the wheel is reinvented !
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