Windows 8 is the new Windows XP

[syobon999]

IS Microsoft planning on keeping Windows 8 as its main and latest operating system for more than a decade? then yes, Windows 8 is the new XP.

[Dot Matrix]

I am talking about the complaints that Windows 8 is a frankenstein OS because it cannot make up its mind on if it is Modern or traditional desktop UI. That is the major complaint I hear (other than the store). They do not like the start screen (being thrown back into the modern UI).

Granted, it's unfinished, but you'll be seeing more of the Modern UI in Windows 9, so it's nothing anyone will be escaping.

[Active.]

it's nothing anyone will be escaping.

Is that a promise or a threat? :p

[CrossCheck]

most businesses have skipped every other version of windows with the exception windows for workgroups and NT family after that it was every other OS

you had this was how it was simce the start of nt

3.1-3.5 nt adopted

win 95 skipped

NT 4.0 adopted

win 98 skipped

win 2000 adopted

win ME skipped

win xp adopted (although was slow but runs at a majority of businesses today)

win vista skipped

win 7 slowly being adopted

so i wouldn't be shocked if win 8 wasn't adopted by businesses except for businesses that run kiosks like Redbox, Airlines and retail outlets that use touch based point of sale because of the enhancement in the touch based interface of win 8.

[xankazo]

^ by the time I wanted to shut down, I already knew it was in the settings area of the charm menu, and that's because when i started up the CP for the first time, I went poking around in all the new areas to see where everything was

but that could just be me. it's one of the reasons I'm so good at learning new things

^ by the time I wanted to shut down, I already knew it was in the settings area of the charm menu, and that's because when i started up the CP for the first time, I went poking around in all the new areas to see where everything was

but that could just be me. it's one of the reasons I'm so good at learning new things

Same thing happened to me.

[Dot Matrix]

Is that a promise or a threat? :p

Windows 8 is just the beginning of a big transformation. Even if Metro fails, Microsoft will be movi g forward with other plans. The Windows of years past is gone for good. Computing moves forward, not back.

[farmeunit]

Just what we needed. Another "Windows 8 is awesome and everything else sucks" thread . . .

[BajiRav]

I am talking about the complaints that Windows 8 is a frankenstein OS because it cannot make up its mind on if it is Modern or traditional desktop UI. That is the major complaint I hear (other than the store). They do not like the start screen (being thrown back into the modern UI).

The Windows 8 on my 2011 self-built desktop PC with no touch hardware (not even a mouse or trackpad) knows too well that it's not for touch or Metro apps. I live in desktop 99% of the time. The 1% is because I like to use start screen as a widget layer to check weather, emails and other live tiles. It took me some effort to assign default apps to avoid switching to Metro (picture viewer etc.) but I guess that much effort is common with any OS.

I have yet to see a legitimate complaint for Windows 8 on non-touch PCs besides "because I don't like it" or "but it is ugly" or "normal users will be confused" (why the **** do you care if it works for you?).

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

Where I could be wrong

There's a fact I'm not taking into consideration, and is MS hard ad campaign: It's everywhere! People will know how to adapt to Windows 8 in a blink of an eye. But that does not assure them that they will upgrade.

Windows 8 marketing is non-existant here in Sydney Australia. Wise move I think.

[*RedBull*]

I will buy a copy of 8, maybe two. But I still like Win7.

[TCA]

Absolutely not. As XP support is dying, and has been, Windows 7 has proven to be one of, if not THE best version of WIndows ever. Driver support is very good at this point, and the platform is solid. Businesses are just now starting to migrate from XP to the proven WIndows 7. IBM, for example, is upgrading all of it's internal systems from XP to Windows 7. Windows 8 will never be looked at by most companies. Most will be moving to Windows 7 and will stick with it until long after Windows 8 has come and gone. Most businesses won't upgrade again until Windows 10 or so I'd guess.

You're right about Win 7 being their best OS as Win XP was too. I personally, do have windows 8 partitioned on my HDD. At first I was like "This is really cool" now I feel I could never use it for a main OS, I'm just liking Win 7 more over then 8. Which don't get me wrong there are FEW features I like, Weather, Maps, Pictures and IE10 etc. I feel that 7 is the next XP on the standards of operation, people that skipped over Vista kept XP then slowly migrated to Windows 7. The learning curve is pretty big and users/businesses that are too used to having a start menu to get to the things they need quick access to (which there is an option to show those options on the start screen) without having to right click in the bottom right corner and even then those options only contain CMD basic and CMD (Administrative mode) etc etc. I can see Windows 7 surviving just as long as XP, could be wrong though.

[ozgeek]

More of like Vista. People didn't embrace Vista well. And I'm sure Win8 will suffer the same fate.

People don't like drastic changes. They like what is familar to them. Win8 appears to market for tablets and entrainment sectors rather than oridinary offices and home offices.

Many businesses around here still run WinXP. Why? because it does the job. Remember computers are tools. It doesn't need fancy upgrades just because. It will need upgrades if it doesn't complete require tasks. Heck I've even seen Office2000 still in use somewhere.

Businesses are not like home users. They can't just install new windows and call it a day. There are many procedures to follow and costs heck amount of money, I'm sure they are recluntant to waste on software when the software they already have works fine. They don't play the latest and newest games so upgrading is very un-necessary in a business setting.

[Matt123]

I don't think Windows 8 will fail however i doubt it will reach the level of success of windows 7. I think the most realistic scenario is that it will be modest success, falling in between Windows Vista and Windows 7 in sales.

[NightScreams]

according to MS...lacking direct quotes atm but basically, they want users to actually use the metro experience and give it a chance as apposed to just running back to the old way. They also seem to want developers to push their applications *somehow* into the metro space moreso than desktop...therefore i suspect MS wants to break away from legacy...the old registry based system. But obviously they can't just do that cold turkey and they seem to be forever stuck with this, so perhaps if they can move developers to Metro, that should move consumers to that user space as well, no longer needing some 10 gigs worth of footprint legacy data.

So perhaps they will integrate the few exclusive features that only the desktop has, to the metro space and eventually i'm sure that all of this will evolve over the coming years and satisfy ...but i'm speculating based on what i'm hearing from MS and blogs

I don't think Windows 8 will fail however i doubt it will reach the level of success of windows 7. I think the most realistic scenario is that it will be modest success, falling in between Windows Vista and Windows 7 in sales.

fail financially or not, it won't go away. W9 will come the same despite either as will W8's continued support cycle for many more years, just like Vista's. Metro, as MS stated, is here to stay, at least in some form or fashion.

[Dot Matrix]

I dunno about you guys, but I think MS is having a ton of success with the crowds in NYC.

[DeadEndAccount]

This new version of Windows is going to be a disaster, pundits say. It will be completely rejected by businesses, who will stick with old versions even after Microsoft drops support for them.

And its new interface is so hideous and unusable that customers who are forced to use it will trip over themselves finding ways to restore the old Start menu.

I am, of course, talking about Windows XP, which was released 11 years ago this week. It lived down to all those insults and dire predictions for years before it finally and implausibly became a success.

If you?re a lazy pundit and haven?t written your Windows 8 wrap-ups yet, feel free to use these decade-old stories, just substituting 8 for XP.

[...]

Continued at source: Ed Bott and ZDNet.

Heck, why not go further back to Windows 2000 when competitors and the press was bashing it for being 'bloated' and 'what do 35million lines of code do' screamed the former SCO CEO (before SCO was bought out by Caldera - referred to as 'Santa Cruz Operations'). Microsoft is the corporation that people love to hate just as people use to love hating IBM - ignoring the fact that almost all the assumptions made about Windows have been based on bad experiences with the 9x series just as people bash Internet Explorer based on a crappy experience with Internet Explorer 6. It is really getting to the point where I wonder why anyone who even listen to the blow hards who spew ill-informed opinions on their blogs regarding matters they know little to nothing about.

Wellllll there were a couple things removed.. for example, seem to recall some people complaining about MSDOS being removed from XP and were unable to run some of their older applications or games that relied on certain things that the command console couldn't provide. (Well, until DOSBox came along later.)

Incorrect - Windows NT had a DOS virtual machine, it wasn't perfect but 9/10 it did a pretty good job. The DOS virtual machine was removed in the 64bit version of Windows as it wasn't possible to provide the sorts of 'low level hardware access' that was required for the virtual machine required. ( link )

Feel free to rewrite history at any point.

Where is he wrong? Instead of posting a snarky remark why not actually tell them where they are wrong.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I dunno about you guys, but I think MS is having a ton of success with the crowds in NYC.

sounds that way to me, I really wish i could afford a surface right now, but sadly I can't

[mrdeezus]

Windows 8 seems to be geared towards tablets, touchscreens. what about the laptop users?Windows 8 will be a niche user OS. Probably 8 was geared for steering users to thin clients or cloud OS hardware. I don't think laptops will die off very soon. but wow, Windows 8 is not what I would have expected from MS.

I have been using it on a laptop for about 6 weeks, consumer preview and I like it. For me, I think that Ill buy a gesture touch mouse. I think that's the way to go as it makes using a mouse that much better. I don't think business really want to upgrade to anything new, that usually costs money.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I don't think business really want to upgrade to anything new, that usually costs money.

you just hit it on the nail right here with why business won't upgrade to Windows 8

this is one of the biggest reasons why most businesses are choosing now to upgrade from XP to 7. since Windows 8 is coming out (well it just came out) it means that the price for 7 has gone down, making it more affordable to upgrade to 7, and from a business standpoint, that's a big deal

[spaceelf]

Most places will only upgrade every other OS if they upgrade at all anyway.

[Growled Member]

Most places will only upgrade every other OS if they upgrade at all anyway.

That's true but I can see business moving to a MS tablet. Maybe not RT but I can see them moving to Pro, especially for people who work out of the office and now carry laptops.

[Dot Matrix]

Windows 8 based tablets will be a huge contender in business. Like it or not...

[trek]

^ Yeah without the ability to integrate into AD. No.

[Dot Matrix]

^ Yeah without the ability to integrate into AD. No.

Surface Pro can.

[mmjm]

I have to say, I have never used Windows XP with the Luna theme enabled. I always turned it off as soon as I reinstalled. It was just so hideous. It was bettered when Windows XP Media Center Edition came out though.

I harped and was down right angry with Windows 8 but I'm using it right now, can't say I LOVE it but I got over the initial shock of the change and Microsoft fixed some of the issues I had. I still hate how it triggers the hot corners in desktop mode every time I aim for my sidebar or bump the mouse.

I also like the look of Office 2013, if they made the desktop in Windows 8 like that I would like the OS even more. Right now it looks a bit half-assed with the desktop as an afterthought and metro stitched in

Considering Windows Codename 'Blue' is in the works and will probably get released in 6-12 months from now I'll give it a chance until then or whatever Windows 9 is and see how things go