back to article Le whoops! Microsoft France boss blows lid off 'Windows 9' event

When Microsoft sent out invitations to a secret press event for September 30 in San Francisco, rumors spread that it would mark the next major release of Windows. Now the president of Microsoft France has blown apart Microsoft's attempt at Applesque PR – by letting slip that "Windows 9" is indeed coming. "Last year we had …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If it is anything like the last incarnation, I can happily wait thill hell freezes over before I upgrade.

    1. Peter2 Silver badge

      Let's be honest though, all they need to do is slightly retheme the win7 interface and then stick it on win8, call it Win9 and that's job done. Hardly anybody would notice given how many people have actually used Win8 for any appreciable time.

      I'm waiting for the normal interface to reappear on the desktop before anything replaces Win7, and also waiting for server 2012 to get a normal interface before my 2003R2 terminal server gets decommissioned.

      I'm hardly likely to be the only one in the same position. The question is, can Microsoft manage to listen to their customers for once? If Microsoft can't provide a workable upgrade path pretty soon then they are going to look awfully silly when somebody else does.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        I am not convinced that Microsoft will be able to being themselves out of the shitstorm that they are currently in quite that easilly.

        W8 has been a commercial catastrophy, W8.1 hasn't really changed anything and yet there is nothing really fundamentally wrong with it. OK the majority hated TIFKAM, Metro is just pants, the stupid bloody sidebar thing drives you crazy on anything but a tablet, but the system in itself actually works.

        From what we have seen last week W9 will have no real changes, I feel it will continue to be hated. The flat interface, the half arsed attempt at bringing back the start menu, those bloody apps will remain etc...

        This whole new paradigm has resulted in a very disturbed OS. It's trying to answer a problem that doesn't exist and is failing hopelessly to make any headway.

        Microsoft are struggling and it's beginning to show.

        (MS : Ils ont les pieds dans la merde et l'odeur commence d'être très désagréable.)

        1. dan1980

          @Khaptain

          'Metro' is not 'pants'. It is a well thought-out, interesting and unique interface.

          The problem is that it is a well thought-out, interesting and unique interface designed for tablets and phones and thus has no f$#king place on my mouse/keyboard-controlled computer, much less my f$@king servers!!!

          Most people agree that the back-end improvements are good. Having deployed several 2012 R2 servers I can say that there are LOADS of improvements that make a real difference. But that f$#king interface makes it a real chore to manage.

          As a desktop operating environment it is less annoying than on a server but the point is that, for servers and desktops, there has been no gain from the new look and rather a lot of pain. At the very least, it has annoyed a whole load of people.

          Don't get me started on the new Server Manager tool . . .

          1. Avatar of They
            Happy

            Exactly

            Pretty much summed up my comment I was about to make. Have an upvote.

            ....But will MS have learned ANYTHING this time round????

            Probably not.

        2. Hans 1
          Headmaster

          "Ils ont les pieds dans la merde et l'odeur commence a être très désagréable."

        3. BobChip

          Microsoft are struggling and it's beginning to show.

          Thanks Khaptain. This is precisely Microsoft's problem, and it is hard to see what they can do about it any time soon. Even if Win 9 turns out to be brilliant (which seems unlikely), they still have to persuade dissafected customers to use it or, even more challenging, come back to MS from Apple or Linux. Who in their right mind would move from a good product which works to one which is clearly in trouble?

          I suspect the challenge is too severe, and that MS will never recover to a position of dominance. And by implication, this must leave their long term future in doubt.

        4. Peter2 Silver badge

          >"I am not convinced that Microsoft will be able to being themselves out of the shitstorm that they are currently in quite that easilly."

          All Microsoft has to say: Due to public feedback on the new interface introduced by some guy we have now sacked due to pissing off virtually every customer we have we have re introduced the "classic" interface for legacy devices without touchscreens. This is not the default UI, however it can be selected from the themes menu or you can force the use of this interface via group policy.

          /TIFKAM issues that are dissuading deployments.

          It is quite literally that simple.

      2. nanchatte

        All they need to do is get rid of those rediculous lucky charms and slidy shit for regular PCs and replace the detault apps on the start screen with their proper desktop equivalents that stay windowed until you slide them to one side to create a new, adjustable panel where the app becomes its minimalist doppelganger... W8 was not bad, just schizo.

        I personally enjoy the panelling, although it could obviously be improved, it is quite nice to be able to dock an app to the side of the screeen (email, say) while still having a clean desktop and windows that don't maximise over the top of it.

        Oh... and add a little 7 depth back to the deathly drab interface and they're basically done.

        Otherwise, I'm actually impressed with 8's ability to run on an old 2GB RAM Pentium of mine.

        1. MyffyW Silver badge

          @nanchatte actually impressed with 8's ability to run on an old 2GB RAM Pentium of mine.

          You have me intrigued - might this be a reprieve for my Athlon XP tripped out with 3GB of RAM but woefully incapable of running Win 7 or Debian Wheezy? Or should I give it a traditional Viking funeral?

          1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

            @ MyffyW

            Athlon XP runs Wheezy just fine as long as you do not try to enable PAE and its dear friedn the 3_LEVEL_PAGETABLES. You need to either rebuild the kernel or use the "486" image even if this means that you will sacrifice some RAM in the process. Rebuilding is better as you can come up with a set of options which allow you to use that amount of RAM without sacrificing 99% of the performance.

            Otherwise the GP is right - Windows 8 for the first time in 2 decades requires less resources, not more. This is one of the reasons why the channel hated it as it did not actually force an upgrade cycle.

          2. Fuzz

            Nope,

            Unfortunately it's almost impossible to run Windows 8 without a 64bit processor. You need SSE2 and the NX bit and I think there were only 2 or 3 processors released that had those features but didn't have 64bit support.

      3. Greogr

        Good luck with the wait... hope they deliver in less than a year when your terminal server will reach EOL

        1. dan1980

          @Greogr

          Indeed. 2008 R2 is stable and an improvement over 2003. Not to mention that 2003 cannot run the newer IE versions, which are an improvement in both speed and security over IE 8 (highest version that will run on 2003). Of course you can use FF/Chrome, but just saying . . .

          That said, 2012 R2 is a big improvement purely from a performance perspective. The problem is trying to wrangle it into a well-behaved TS environment.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      From what I have seen so far

      I going to pass. It looks like some minor rejigging of the crap they are currently trying to fob us off with.

      MetroUI is still live and well, and Windows 8 Service Pack 2 has just be renamed Windows 9 to try and create some interest in their failed experiments.

    3. phuzz Silver badge
      Gimp

      The main difference between 7 and 8(.1) is the start menu, which I find myself using, maybe a couple of times a day? and I use it in the same way as 7, press windows key start typing, press enter to select a program. Both versions work basically the same for that workflow, they just look different.

      Admittedly I've only used 8.1, not 8.0, but I have trouble seeing what all the fuss is about now.

      The one thing that does annoy me, is that they practically insist that you use a windows Live account to login, which if you're sensible and have a complex password on your online account, leaves you typing in 20 chars of gibberish every time you want to logon your computer. It can be replaced by a PIN though.

      (PS, if you want to dock a window to one side of the screen, just select a window, and press Windows key+direction arrow [L/R for dock to side of screen, up for maximise, down for minimise]. This works on Win 7 and up)

      1. Uwe Dippel

        Thanks for the info!

        I mean, your advise on docking. I read it three times, thinking very hard, trying to imagine how that looks like and what you do.

        Then, I shook my head and decided that not being a Windows user was a very good decision, and that there is no need at all to change my position as long as this is needed to dock a window. Though maybe there are more convincing ways to do that, I don't feel encouraged to explore those. Thank you very much.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time flies

    I've not actually seen a copy of Windows 8 yet.

    1. Ken Darling

      Re: Time flies

      You don't know what you're missing... Some car crashes just have to be seen to be believed.

      1. Mark 85

        Re: Time flies

        You don't know what you're missing... Some car crashes just have to be seen to be believed.

        Maybe so, but I'd rather not be in the car when it does crash. I guess I'm one of the olde skool who say they'll have to pry my Win 7 out of my cold dead hands as so far, the further I am away from Win8, the better. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what Win9 brings... either terror or ooo... shiney..nice.

    2. NP-Hardass

      Re: Time flies

      Minus TIFKAM and the start button debacle (remedied with the program Start8), I've found Win8 to be quite pleasant to use (on the rare occasions that I use Windows)

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Time flies

        Without TIFKAM, Win8 should have been called "Win7 SP2".

    3. nanchatte

      Re: Time flies

      too bad, 8.0 really is something to behold in all its AWEFUL majesty.

    4. Eddy Ito

      Re: Time flies

      Actually it's interesting since only XP was exceptionally long lived. Ignoring the really early versions since MS went through about seven releases (1.0 in 1985 through 3.11 WFW in 1993) in nine years including NT 3.1. After that it was NT 3.5 in '94, NT 3.51 and Win 95 in '95, NT 4 in '96, Win 98 in '98, 98 SE in '99, 2000 & Muddled Escape in Y2K and XP in '01. XP being the first consumer/enterprise blend and about where they split off the server side releases.

      Post XP, the server side saw released versions in '03, '08, '09 (2008 R2), '12 and '13 (2012 R2) plus Home Server in '07 and '11. The desktop versions were Vista in '06, 7 in '09 and 8 in '12. Of course we saw the consumer preview of 8 in September of 2011 so it's really only XP and Server 2003 that were "new" for five years where most others last three years or less.

      Following the three year rule we should be seeing a consumer preview of Win 9 right about now and a general release about mid 2015. It's quite possible they want to get 9 out the door to try to recover this years Xmas season which would make it early but not terribly so and it's probably a much better idea than waiting until after the holidays this year hoping to make it up in the next 'back to school' push.

    5. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Time flies

      Different strokes, I guess.

      I find it great. I like the new flat style and the start screen doesn't bother me - I use it about as often as the start menu; a couple of time a week. Most of my apps are pinned to the desktop.

      In tablet mode it works very well, I much prefer it to iOS and Android tablets - the big advantage is, I can put my tablet in a desktop dock and it runs multiple external displays with full Windows desktop, no having to worry about syncing data, everything is just there.

      The additions in multi-monitor support are worth the upgrade alone, if you use multiple monitors.

      There are lots of subtle changes to Windows 8 that really make it a better experience.

      And automatic background data throttling on a metered (E.g. 3G / LTE) connection is a boon.

      1. sabroni Silver badge

        Re: Yeah right....

        Like we're going to listen to someone who uses Windows 8!!! I'm much more interested in the opinions of those who won't go anywhere near it, they give a much clearer impression of how shit it is.

        1. Stuart 22

          Re: Yeah right....

          "Like we're going to listen to someone who uses Windows 8!!! I'm much more interested in the opinions of those who won't go anywhere near it, they give a much clearer impression of how shit it is."

          You have hit the nail on the head. I haven't used any MS OS since a very short episode with Vista.

          That's the point - I was on the edge of my seat (sometimes in front of Bill Gates) excitedly for every new MS OS. I bought into it with all the fervour now donated to Apple fanbois. But no longer, I don't care, I've moved on.- Win9 may be brilliant, it may be pants - it most probably won't make any difference to my purchase plans. I'm not listening, I now have other fish to fry.

          That's MS's mistake - it is a darn sight easier to lose your base then get them back.

          Personally I think MS missed a trick in trying to keep a unified UI across devices. The story of Linux is that that's now herding cats. The abuse over TIFKAM is mild compared to what's been thrown at Canonical over Unity. Except if you don't like that then there is KDE, Gnome , XFCE, LXDE ...

          A smarter MS would have slipped in TIFKAM as the default consumer UI and kept 'classic' just a click away. OS vendors don't seem to learn that it is now a mature market and the new is not a guarenteed winner.

          Users hate change. Businesses can't afford it.

  3. Tom 35

    windows 9?

    I was expecting something like... Windows 8.1 update 1 With bells on

    Now with the new modern.2 UI with start v2

  4. BillsBacker

    Leave it to Micro $ oft

    To invent a version of math where 7> 8. Methinks they deserve a Nobel for that enlightenment.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Leave it to Micro $ oft

      7>8?...I will answer that with Microsoft Windows operator logic.

      if (5>6<7>8==9); eatMemory();

      // API docs reference eat_Memory(), not eatMemory()...have a beer.

  5. Nashimoto
    Devil

    Windows Nein

    1. JJKing

      Oh man, imagine if it was called Windows Ya then (just to be completely silly :-)))) )

      1. Hans 1
        Headmaster

        Windows Ja, nicht Ya ! Wo hast du denn das her ?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Seeing someone else repeating that makes me smile. The name really has stuck, not sure whether others had a similar idea before I posted it here (and on alt.humor.puns).

      I think Microsoft will have difficulty shaking it off if they do decide to brand it as "Windows 9".

      1. nanchatte

        Hang on there sailor...

        Isn't alt.humor.puns an OS X plist file?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hang on there sailor...

          Isn't alt.humor.puns an OS X plist file?

          You wish

    3. king of foo

      oh no

      You absolute ***** lol - now I'm going to have Stephen Fry's camp German accent in my head whenever I think or see windows 9.

      Maybe I can force it into Rammstein instead.

  6. GitMeMyShootinIrons

    Stop! Take a breath...

    It would appear that the negative ranters have already started.

    Perhaps a pause for thought is in order. MS definitely have a subconscious alternating between releases. 98 was good (particularly SE), 2000 was meh. XP was good, Vista was an abomination. 7 was good, 8 - well beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Maybe 9 will be just fine. Take 8's underpinnings and fix the GUI and who knows...

    1. Bladeforce

      Re: Stop! Take a breath...

      Get it right windows 2000 was actually good it was windows me that should have. Had the extra h for windows meh

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Stop! Take a breath...

        Indeed… Windows 2000 was decent for its time. Modern enough to support features like true plug-and-play, USB, etc… but still reasonably solid, and fast on modest hardware compared with other Windows releases.

        I used to run the release candidate quite happily on a Pentium 133MHz with 64MB RAM, and it used to run that smoother than it ran Windows 95.

        Windows XP just felt bloated by comparison, even on hardware supposedly "designed" for it. My old laptop I used at uni, a P4 1.7GHz with 2GB RAM, ran much better on Windows 2000 than it ever did under its native Windows XP. (And it ran Linux better again.)

      2. Phil W

        Re: Stop! Take a breath...

        Indeed, Windows 2000 was essentially 50% of the development from NT4 to XP, all the nice stable backend improvements and stuff with a rather spartan GUI on top.

        Windows ME was the other 50%, i.e. all the bells and whistles and fanciness without the backend and reliability to support it.

        1. GitMeMyShootinIrons

          Re: Stop! Take a breath...

          2000 was very much 50℅. It always seemed like a product rushed out the door, with XP being the intended finished product.

          I had one of the early betas when it was still labeled NT5. Basically NT4 with plug'n'pray plus a few bells and whistles.

          That's largely why I describe 2000 as 'meh' - it wasn't bad, but it wasn't finished either.

          I ignored Windows ME because I'm in obviously in denial - I'd forgotten possibly the worst Windows release of all. I hang my head in shame.

          1. Mage Silver badge

            Re: Stop! Take a breath...

            XP may be a bit more bloated, but Win2K was indeed the unfinished version of it.

            ME was the most broken version of Win3.x, it, Win95 and Win98 was basically all the 32 bit addons for the 1993 version of WFWG.311 and the new explorer shell. Nothing to do with NT3.1 to XP development.

            The Win9x family should only have been on a dedicated gaming console.

          2. Philippe

            Re: Stop! Take a breath...

            Windows Me should be kept in computer museum as the worst operating system ever released.

            This thing was dreadful.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stop! Take a breath...

      " Stop! Take a breath...

      It would appear that the negative ranters have already started"

      Probably because they speak from experience - like me. Windows Hate sucks like a backstreet masseuse.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stop! Take a breath...

      Sorry, you would have to be a bit of a pleb to believe this alternative version nonsense. For starters there are versions missed out to make it work...

      Until Microsoft unwind back to Windows7 and start again, no amount of rehashing is going to fix the mess that is Windows.

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Stop! Take a breath...

        But that is all they need to do: Win8 defaulting to a win7 theme with TIFKAM as an option. TIFKAM appears to be a bolt-on anyway, so it wouldn't be that difficult.

        It won't help sales that much though. The main reason for corporates not upgrading is not the desktop-inappropriate UI, its the fact that Win7 upgrades are still going on or have only recently been completed. Sadly for MS, an OS or UI does not provide competitive advantage any more. MS might need Win8 but users do not.

    4. beep54
      Devil

      Re: Stop! Take a breath...

      As far as I'm concerned, 7 was Vista-next-update-with-a-price-tag. Because Vista was starting to work. And 7 is simply Vista +. M$ just sort of realized that with damage done, the only way to recoup losses was.....rebranding! Yeah! That's the ticket. Worked, too. 9 will be the next version of 8 with a new price tag. Nice. But. What I wanna know is...when in the HELL will MS fix the gd fundamentals of Windows that have never worked well such as Windows Explorer? How the HELL can you explain an operating system with an effing file manager that is so inept that it is not merely inconsistent in application, but crashes. Repeatedly (at least starting with Vista). And while I'm ranting, what the hell is up with that little message when you are downloading something to somewhere that sez something about 'your search'? Dear gawd, it ain't a search, it's a freaking DOWNLOAD! There is SO MUCH stuff that MS needs to fix, but, oh, no! Shiney-shiney is the key!!!!

      I'd best quit now

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    just imagine if windows 10 was unity bolted on top.

    1. kain preacher

      Some one hates unity .

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