When MS creates an OS and within a few months of release needs a 300 plus MB upgrade {cough cough repair} someone screwed up or didn't listen to it's customers which seems to be the major W-8 issue at hand. The screw up was trying to make a Tablet OS into a desktop OS. Windows 8 may be great for Tablets etc but not for PC unless one is a geek loving to play hide and seek. Some persons thrive on the thrill of it but many more simply don't.
You'll not hear MS talk about lost man hours and production time when businesses including health care used XP and all the staff had to learn W-8. There is no sense in playing games with the menus and making users play button button who's got the button to find program, function, or files. Improvements can be made without doing this and that is the parts MS can not comprehend. They are doing these type of changes simply in the name of a {bling} change and people get angry.
MS does screw up. I started out on WEB TV which was good for what it was designed to do. I went then to W/98. Within a few minutes I was able to navigate it OK. Next came Windows ME Upgrade. The piece of crap OS would not stop writing to the HD long enough to even Defrag even in Safe Mode with only primitive system running it so I uninstalled it. When XP came up I bought a new computer. I've bought three actually since XP's release. XP is a stable system and the jump from 98/SE to XP only took minutes to figure out. Now as I understand it VISTA was garbage and W-7 is great except for again messing with where things were especially in the area of Documents.
Going on the previous MS track record W-8 is likely the dog many say it is and I'm not wasting good money to find out. I'll do a W-7 upgrade soon instead and hope W-9 is a lessons learned OS for MS.
I’m not missing anything at all with my comments.
Windows is just an OS for computers. Windows is built by people. People can’t possibly think of all the problems that can be issues that can come up ahead of time, and they can’t possibly code for all situations ahead of time. Thus, MS has it monthly “fix” releases, which for the most part, work quite well, and without a person having to be involved in installing those fixes. There is no such thing as an OS which comes complete or error-free from the factory; not the Mac OSes, nor Android, nor Linux, nor Windows. Those are moving targets in hardware and software, and moving targets get fixed or upgraded all the time.
Dial up upgrades might be a problem to many, but it can be done, and was done, and it happened to me when I was using dial-up a bunch of years ago. The idea is to schedule the “upgrade” to when the computer wont be used, like in the middle of the night. In fact, the default time for fixes and upgrades is set to something like 2 AM or when a PC is about to be shut down. That’s basically a non-issue, and it’s something that occurs with all OSes.
I don’t know why you needed to go “cloudy” on me, but my comments dealt, basically, with Windows 8. I’m not particularly anxious to do my computing on the cloud myself, but, there are things that work best on the cloud, and eventually, most computing will be cloud-based or supported by cloud services. I’m one of the biggest detractors for cloud computing, since I know that, sooner or later, one or more of those cloud services will go down for a very lengthy period of time, and then people will be left holding bricks in their hands or laps.
Windows 8 was designed to work with PCs and/or tablets, and it does those things quite well. The OS on tablets is actually more advanced than any other, including iOS or Android. And on PCs, the new UI can be used, if the PC has the touch screens, or the PC can be used in desktop mode. Both of the versions work quite well. When it comes to Windows RT, I’m one of those that feels that Windows for ARM never needed to exist, and MS should’ve concentrated on making the “regular” OS work with ARM processors. No need to have created 2 “different” OSes, which aren’t really compatible, other than through cloud support.
Learning Windows 8 doesn’t take too much time, and in fact, it can be done in a couple of hours, and perhaps less. Plus, most businesses usually do not upgrade to a new OS as soon as it has been released. That gives the employees within a business a lot of time to become acquainted with the “new” OS, before the business upgrades. Thus, the building of experience for the employees, will already have occurred. And that’s the way it is in most cases nowadays. In fact, that’s what BYOD is about, where employees bring their own devices to work, and companies supply the support for them. No training of the employee necessary, since the employee is already “self-trained” and experienced.
With hardware and software, there is no such thing as an established way of doing things. Hardware and software changes by the minute. So, the hardware and software companies HAVE TO continue being leading edge providers of that hardware and software, otherwise, they risk becoming extinct, like what happened to Palm and is happening to RIM/Blackberry. So, if a company needs to stay current, and what they provide continues getting upgraded, then they have no choice but to continue the upgrade cycles, where people are constantly demanding some “greatest and latest” product. It’s called staying current and relevant. That costs money, and it’s going to cost money to the consumers and businesses too. That’s not for the “bling” motive alone; it’s for trying to remain relevant and alive. Apple keeps coming up with “upgrades” to their iPhones and iPads, yet, for the most part, the changes are barely perceptible or needed, and the consumers eat it up when a “new” iPad or new iPHone is released. Why isn’t Apple castigated or criticized the same way that Microsoft is? Apple does it for the bling, or to put it more business-like, for the revenue and profits. Revenue and profits is what Microsoft and Apple and Google and IBM and Amazon and Samsung, are all after. You call it bling; I call it, revenue and profits, and it’s also called, remaining relevant and alive.
Windows 8 is not a perfect product. But then again, no product is ever perfect. That’s why companies continue coming out with new versions of the same, or completely new products. Mistakes are made, and they’re also corrected. Nobody at Microsoft, nor outside of Microsoft, could ever claim that Windows, or any other MS product or service, was ever perfect. The same could be said for any Apple or Google or Samsung or IBM product or service. If perfection was ever achieved, then the business cycles would end soon after, and sales would stop completely, and we’d end up with a stagnant company, and a whole lot of the economy also becoming stagnant. If I grew my own food in my backyard, I wouldn’t need to go to the grocery store; if I get the perfect PC with all of the software that I could ever need, I would never need another PC in my lifetime, nor would most other people. But, that’s not the reality, and we will continue getting upgrades and new stuff, and new purchases, and an economy which won’t stand still. PCs sales have been slowing down in the last 3 or so years. But, that’s a testament to how good the hardware and software have been. No need to purchase a new one if the old one will be good for another few years. That’s not the same with tablets and smartphones, for now. But, people will eventually get tired of the constant upgrade cycles, which are a lot more costly than with PCs. So, people will not be upgrading every 2 years, and tablets and smartphones will be kept for 4-6 years, because, they will have been created to be good enough to last that long. PCs and Macs aren’t selling as well as they did before 2009, but, they’re still selling better than tablets, with more than 300 million still being sold yearly. Those PCs will be mostly Windows inside, and what MS is putting out with Windows, will be good enough for most people and businesses. There will be complainers, but then, complainers exist for everything in life. I complain myself, but I also know that, I am free to go elsewhere and find something which might suit be best or better. If Windows is not good for you, then there are options, such as tablets with other OSes, or get a Mac, or get a PC with Linux. Nobody is stopping you from making other choices, not even Microsoft. Happy trails!