Windows 8: Microsoft's tablet-desktop still painful to swallow Microsoft's Windows 8 is now in the hands of developers and IT administrators subscribed to MSDN or TechNet. They are the first people other than close partners and fearless torrenters to try the final code. Anyone expecting major changes from June's Release Preview, or concessions for those missing the old Start menu, will be …
This has been posted nearly an hour and no "Win 8 Metro is crap, i'm outa here"rants mostly from people who have not actually used it and are jumping on the 'hate train'? Fair enough, go "outa here". Its a free choice.
Some of us do use it and have done for some months, in my case on a Samsung Series 7 slate (its also a full laptop) and on this form factor, (accepting that it is a transitional O/S) it works REALLY well.
I'll be buying this O/S with my hard (yeah right! Honest...) earned cash and replacing the preview I'm running.
"Typical that a pro-Microsoft guy would post rant about folks that don't worship the same entity he does."
Actually, try re-reading. I said that anyone is free to chose which ever O/S they like to and they should. Like it or not (you may not care to admit it), board are full of people who have very strong opinions on a subject having no actual experience on that subject..... "don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes".... if only these people would TRY Windows 8 first, then the opinion they have would carry a lot more weight, specially the bad ones!
"It may have take 8 minutes for others not of his liking to post, but it took him all of 15 seconds. LOL"
Neither makes sense or is funny ..... ? In fact, I was the first to post, by luck, nothing more and before people with a diferent view.... so what does that mean? And what does the fact it may or may not have taken me "15 seconds" to post have any bearing on it?
Far from a "MS fanboy", I use Android having tried MS phone and found out it didn't do what I needed it to do. You see, I chose what I use over its functionality versus my requirements. My requirements may not be yours.... it's a simple concept that's lost on a lot of people, and some people turn this gap into a pile of unrequired hate that others like to jump on for the hell of it.
I am quite impressed though, 44 down votes, that's got to be a record? Next time i'll post something popular (but not based on experiences or fact) and see if I can get more than 44 up-votes..."I hate MS! You SUCK" should do it?
Jim said :
"It may have take 8 minutes for others not of his liking to post, but it took him all of 15 seconds. LOL"
Monty replied :
"Neither makes sense or is funny ..... ?"
The point (or joke) is that you were being so sarcastic about the tendency of anti-MS guys to post fast with their shit, but you were even faster with your pro-MS shit.
A well-aimed foot shot by yourself I would say.
And 8 minutes is more than enough for the legions of Microsoft astroturfers and shills.
Negative comments outweigh positive comments about Windows 8 on the Reg boards by about 10 to 1. Downvotes for positive comments are rarely less than 10 greater than upvotes.
So tell me, Barry, who's Legion and who exactly is attempting to sway public opinion? I suggest that regardless of your protestations on behalf of your obvious employers, somebody wants Windows 8 to fail. Whether they pay you to say that it already has in EVERY SINGLE WIN8 ARTICLE are not, I leave to the reader.
doggies...i mean dogged....get over it. these boards, none of them, sway public opinion. ever. period. but they do sort of reflect public opinion. in that no matter how many people microsoft pays to support their warez they are running an order of magnitude behind those who choose rather than "slavishly" adhere to them.
fact is, microsoft can try every tactic, including mimicry, but will fail to gain support. microsoft is toast and does not have the talent needed to regain their momentum to maintain their monopoly. soon, within 5 year i think, that monopoly will break and microsoft will have morphed into the new Apple. again. just copying others stuff. sad really.
>But they are the kings of backward compatibility.
Aka 'the kings of not forcing millions of people to retrain at great expense and inconvenience and forcing them to to get dozens of different suppliers (some of whom may now be defunct) to talk to each other to fix legacy systems that are currently working perfectly well".
But I'm not sure - are you being complimentary or derogatory?
Whatever the reason, like it or lump it - there's still a lot of companies and probably billions of dollars worth of business that relies on the 'traditional' Windows desktop and it's applications. Some even still rely on MSDOS.
Any why not do backward compatibility with a VM - heck, they could even do "window exports" from the local VM to the "host desktop" - a la X forwarding which I use quite often.
I'm sure RDP supports (or could support) such behaviour very well.
Makes backward compatibility rather easy doesn't it - and once the facility is in place you can use it next time you need to "break" something
In a sense, backward compatibility is not all that bad. Many corporations develop their own software. The cost of just upgrading the hardware and licensing is a good chunk of change. But costs could be prohibitive if in house software needs to be rewritten. The bottom line for Windows 8 will be will the benefits outweigh the costs involved. Upgrades for the sake of upgrades went out with the 386
Indeed, on a small form factor where you can touch the screen it looks like it would work really well. On my desktop machine at home with 2 27" monitors I'd wager it wouldn't, for example having to move the mouse into a corner to bring up menus, that's a long way to move the mouse to do that and my setup isn't the worst case, at work its typical to have machines with 4 monitors....
They really are shooting themselves in the foot here. Still, on the upside, they really are shooting themselves in the foot!
I used the Consumer Preview (and just upgraded pretty painlessly to to the release version) on a development machine with three monitors. I'm actually typing on it now, on Firefox, on the "new" desktop.
It's very simple. It's very easy. Unless you're a Sheldon Cooper "Change is always bad" type, there's nothing to worry about. There was a curve - not a learning curve, more a familiarity curve. "Learning" would be a huge exaggeration for what's basically just a launcher. As the article says, hit the Windows key and all becomes clear.
I don't feel that "I don't like how it looks" is an acceptable argument over actually using it. We're supposed to be technicians here, not four year old girls.
I agree Dogged, we are not 4 year old "mines pink" here.....
As for desktop, i've currently got a my desktop (well tower really) in storage that runs 3 x 21" Iiyama multi-touch screens, as soon as I get it shipped to my new address in the middle east I will be installing it on them! Surely, this can be a big step in the right direction for big setups like this, rather than having to move the mouse across three (or more screens) you can just touch! :0)
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Its not about willy waving but if that's how you see it then I suggest you're the one that has an issue, not me, its not my intent and that's clear when taken in context.
I am stating that I have 3 touchscreen monitor system at home and in THIS situation, touchscreen is often more useful than a mouse. If I'm working on the right screen with the mouse and I want to hit something, say "pause" on Media Player, which is on my left screen, its far more efficient to just touch it than wheel the mouse across three large screens.
All to often people don't grasp the concept that a touchscreen is NOT to replace a mouse, its to complement it. Once this gets grasped touchscreens suddenly take on a much more significant and useful role. But then I also appreciate its also my preference, based on a few years of experience, and may not be the same for everyone who get no closer to a touchscreen than the phone they use. I doubt, if tech goes the way I see it going, I'll ever buy a non-touchscreen monitor again. Now, where are those Kinnect laptops!?
What I don't get is all the hate from a lot of people. If you don't like it, don't buy it! XP isn't going to stop working just because 8 is out and neither will 7.
Mind you, I suppose, for some, the hate train is an interesting way to while away a boring day, if life's that boring....
"Its not about willy waving" No it's about arm waving,
I have 2 30" screens and edge to edge is about 4 inches on the mouse mat or 5 feet with my finger.
More efficient to let go of the mouse, move my arm 3 feet to poke the screen (leaving a finger mark) and find the mouse again than moving the mouse 3 inches back and forth? My keyboard has a pause button anyway.
As for the hate - gees Microsoft are exploiting their effective monopoly of the desktop to force a user interface on customers with the aim of promoting their efforts in the phone and fondleslab market. If Win 8 retained a start menu and Metro could be disabled what would there be to hate?
Regardless of some people liking the feel of Microsoft's knob in their behind, I hate being told to bend over.
"I have 2 30" screens and edge to edge is about 4 inches on the mouse mat or 5 feet with my finger.
More efficient to let go of the mouse, move my arm 3 feet to poke the screen (leaving a finger mark) and find the mouse again than moving the mouse 3 inches back and forth? My keyboard has a pause button anyway."
Funny that, you seem to miss the point about being right handed, mouse on right screen and left arm reaching to left screen.... see, now letting go of the mouse! And good for you, so does mine (keyboard) but I was trying to use a simple example.
"Regardless of some people liking the feel of Microsoft's knob in their behind, I hate being told to bend over."
Again, seem to have missed out my point about voting with your money and going to another OS, there are plenty of free ones or you can stay with your existing one, no one is FORCING you to put Windows 8 on your PC. Horses for courses and riders!
Comical. The MS damage control team were 8min late to post and failed to consider that none of their supposed enemies could be arsed getting in ahead of them!
Sometimes a 10 to 1 disparity in comment/voting means more than a big astroturfing budget ;)
"FORCING you to put Windows 8 on your PC"
If you run applications which are only available on Windows you are FORCED to put Windows on your PC (or dick around with Wine and get lucky). There are many applications only available on Windows which is what gives Microsoft its effective monopoly of the desktop.
I am not being forced to buy Windows 8, if I want the improvements over Windows 7 I am being force to take Metro. Same story for decades, to get the bits I want and require from Microsoft I am forced to accept the whole incestuous mess. Metro is the latest and most obnoxious example of incestuous mess and it is there and incestuous for the benefit of Microsoft not its customers.
I like the way it looks. I just don't like how it works.
But then I'm not very bright. I tried several of the nifty new (circa 2003) windows key shortcuts (mentioned below) in vain, until I realised: I'm in Unix.
And I can't reach my screens for the fondling part. Are my arms too short? Maybe I'm just not cut out for modern computing.
Am I a freak? MS must be hoping so.
My old Portland Dentist Office ran their stuff on a Radio Shack 16 bit business system for many years... he claimed it never , ever , failed...they ran Peachtree Accounting with a medical package...
He sold the business and retired in 2000, and the thing was still running...
Some MS stuff actually worked... MSDOS 6.0 still is a great terminal platform to talk to intelligent network elements that use a serial port...ANSZI graphics plus DOS made Commodore 64 work so well...
Windows were a diversion from actually making computers work and the MS-INTEL alliance would have worked anyway as they complement each other's development...
XENIX worked as well as anything MS does now...just couldn't handle graphics...
Because sometimes your not always after the start menu so the windows key doesn't always do what you need....
for "lots of screens" systems or even 2 screen systems, touchscreen really work and work well - at least they do for me. Granted though, not many % of people have multi-screen setups, and even less touchscreen multi-screen setups.
Actually, it is obvious you have not tried the preview version. Windows 8 includes IMPROVED support for users with multiple screens. Not only do you NOT have to move your mouse across multiple screens to get to the Charms if you don't want, EVERY monitor now includes a taskbar which you can set up to be mirrored or independent.
Despite all of the complaints regarding the Metro interface, Windows 8 is hands down the best Microsoft OS they have released.
It's a good, honest review that hints at what many people will do anyway: wait for SP1 to include the things that didn't meet the deadline.
As for your post - please continue to mutter quietly to yourself. If you like, I'm sure some of us will club together to keep you in White Lightning.
I too have used it and basically liked it. It's a transitional release, no secret about that, but it does move things forward to a gratifying extent.
I like the "Modern" UI. Really, the only thing I can't forgive is the egregious waste of screen space - i.e. the surrendering of 25% at the top just to display a gigantic "Start". Come on guys.
Good for you, I have to get used to it because at some time in the future I have to support it. Like I did with every Windows since Windows 2.
As a transitional OS which is not intended for general use it's ok, if I had to replace our companies desktops in the next six month it would be a disaster.
Since we're still hard at work replacing XP with Win7 and Office 2003 with 2010 we'll probably be fine for the next 5 years and then Windows 9 will be out, or something totally different.
Actually loser, unlike you stupid smelly spotty greasy virgin nerd fanboys who cream their pants over everything their favorite vendor does, instead of actually critically analyzing anything, we have used the win 8 metro ui on a desktop and it sucks arse big time. Maybe because all you do is play wow with all your other loser virgin friends you don't realize just how shit it is...but for those of us that actually do REAL work it's complete and utter shite and makes our daily tasks a considerable deal more difficult!
No one no where, who actually works in the real world, is ever going to only use a touch device! Anyone who doesn't understand the desktop is here to stay, along with the mouse and keyboard is beyond retarded!
Interesting to hear they're now doing Windows to go, though this could come back and bite them in the arse; If it lowers the inconvenience of having a non-Windows OS on your main system when you can kick up a Windows build at will from USB when you really need to then we might see another few (little) dents in their massive market share.
Windows-To-Go on a memory stick, even a USB 3.0 one, will top out at 50 MB/s and that's through a polled data transfer system. My desktop has a last-generation SATA 2 SSD giving me about 300MB/s DMA read speeds for the OS (which happens to be Win 8 RC) and programs, and modern commodity SATA 3 SSDs are close to 500MB/s data rates which creates an even greater disparity.
WTG is a useful "spare wheel" option but it's not a replacement for having an OS properly installed on a fast HDD. Besides why would MS' market share be affected since WTG still requires a paid-for licence? I see the same arguments elsewhere that Win 8 can be run in a VM on an Apple or Linux box which means, somehow, that Steve Ballmer will be living in a carboard box under a bridge next year since MS will inevitably go bust.
The transparency has an airy and light feel to it, and the new Metro look, while attempting be uniform, is just plain ugly. They could at least leave in the option. This is Windows, for crying out loud, that for many versions shipped with hideous, and I mean hideous, colour presets for your look built right in. Why change it now?
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