Five Reasons why Windows 8 will be dead on arrival


Recommended Posts

That number is peanuts compared to reg non touch desktops. No one is arguing there isnt a market for this, it's just not for the consumer desktop market.

That's up for the consumer market to decide, but so far there is a market for desktop touchscreens. Windows 8 might be the fuel it needs to take off.

My objection to most of the points here is that you are speaking from a power user's stand point.

You know what a PC is, you know how to use and it you do what you want with it.

Consider that the average PC users use case is "Check email, facebook, watch porn". The metro start screen is compelling for this use case, and this is a serious chunk of the market.

Regarding metro as a UI choice (as opposed to the metro start screen), I don't like the way it fits into the old Windows shell. Other then that, it's quite interesting.

Anyone suggesting that the DP version was pretty much what you were going to get on release is just straight up wrong. While the conventions will likely remain the same, there are always a lot of changes between developer builds and beta builds.

Either way, moderators are doing an extremely poor job by allowing this kind of stupidity to continue on the forums AGAIN.

I'm all in favour of exchanging opinion and ideas, but not when the available subject matter isn't even close to being in it's finished form.

  • Like 3

haha, this article has Windows 8/Metro hate written all over it. And it's posted under:

Linux and Open Source

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols & Paula Rooney

Under this category most articles are about Linux (and his/their love-releationship to it);

just look at these titles: "Is the Linux Desktop actually growing?","Big Business, Big Linux"

and the casual break of his hate-relationship to other platforms;

"Apple gets kicked in the teeth by German patent lawsuit decisions"

"Five Reasons why Windows 8 will be dead on arrival"

"Microsoft to lock out other operating systems from Windows 8 ARM PCs & devices"

So; this is a news-section for Linux lovers, who hate Apple and Microsoft...it seems :p Takes away all his credability:p

However, the PC market is *not* the phone market (it isn't even the sub-$500 tablet market, where various Android-based tablets are fighting it out; iPad 2 is priced at the upper range on that, and is basically its own niche - no Android tablet costs that much). Those of you that are thinking that Metro (the UI) is tablet-only apparently are either relatively new to Windows, or have forgotten your Windows (especially NT) history - What was the UI like in five OSes (three 9x and two NT - all of which were for various desktops) - Windows 95/98 (both original and SE)/ME/NT4/2000? Believe it or not, other than the missing Start button, it's basically Metro's great grandfather. The post-XP (mostly from Vista) additions to the desktop menu are gone. The menu has been *rebooted*, basically - it's back to the 9x/NT core it used to have - albeit with a different design language. How many of those additions to the menu in Windows 7 do you actually use? All of them? Most of them? Some of them (or even none of them, because they all exist elsewhere)? If it's either of the latter (some or none), why do you want them? Something on a menu I don't use is clutter - and I loathe clutter. Metro is Windows de-cluttered menuwise. That's not just whyit works for tablets - it's also (in my rather humble opinion) why it works for traditional PCs as well - a distinct lack of clutter and bloat. You don't want *bloatware* on your PC (nearly a third of the posts in the main Windows subforum here address getting rid of *bloatware*) - so how the heck can you justify overly-excessive *menu bloat*?

I never said it was. However, 2011 saw for the first time that smarphones outselling the PC. I also never said Metro is for Tablet. I just said it is ugly. Metro is the big reason why business will not adopt Windows 8. Most people will be satisfied with Windows 7. If you don't see that, you must be new to technology.

In short, even if Metro was the best thing since sliced bread, which it isn?t, it will still require users to learn a new way of doing the same old thing. That?s a failure of an idea right here.

Uh huh... like when the re-designed Office?

Which I should add, many businesses have invested in?

We must remember, Windows 7 was possibly the last "usual/normal" desktop we will see. Within 10 years the majority of computing certainly from the "home user", will be tablet/laptop/smartphone powered. I am not saying desktop PCs will fade, no way, but they certainly will be limited in terms of growth which was reported on the front page just today.

For the touchscreen market, Microsoft is right on the money and that is what they are aiming at... the next generation of PC's, smartphones and tablets to have one unified user interface.

^ Don't need to know anything -- we don't need Windows 8.

:p Many people said that about Windows 7 too :shifty:

Either way, moderators are doing an extremely poor job by allowing this kind of stupidity to continue on the forums AGAIN.

Did you report it and your reasons why?

No... I didn't think so :p

  • Like 1
If you?re unhappy about the state of Metro applications, think about the poor Windows programmers. You?ve spent years learning .NET, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and now they have to learnWinRT and Jupiter/XAML.

only someone who can't program and knows nothing about .Net would say something as stupid as that.

  • Like 1

I don't think it'll be the flop the article is expecting it to be, but I don't expect it to be hugely successful either. For me, if I get a new desktop/laptop I'll be putting Windows 7 on it, not 8.

  • Like 2

Guys, guys, guys. If you actually go back to neowin's news pages 549 - 560, you'll clearly see that people had very low hopes from Windows 7, and that Windows Vista was bashed through all of its life span. I even saw Gates futuristic thoughts about the Keyboard and the mice being dead. Furthermore, I believe that he, being unimpressed by the iPad, wanted to show Steve How tablets are done and release its unified interface for both (Desktop and Tablets).

http://www.neowin.ne...sed-by-the-ipad

http://www.neowin.ne...keyboards--mice

Plus, try reading the comments from these pages so you can see how much bashing was for Windows 7:

http://www.neowin.ne...-m1-build-65741

http://www.neowin.ne...eenshot-gallery

http://www.neowin.ne...next-year-or-so

I'll just say this: Until we don't test the Consumer Preview (Beta) and Release Candidate (RC) builds, let's not throw blasphemy at the OS. Windows 7 early screenshots emerged and people wanted to kill themselves

I know, Metro may be or may not be look good, but only three weeks will tell.

Who cares where the article comes from, or if it's bias. It makes valid points, all of which I agree with. Expecially Metro. Metro is the worst looking thing I've seen. Ever.

I won't be buying Windows 8 based purely on that. Unless they have a button that lets me choose the following:

- I want pretty colours to use huge amounts of desktop real estate, only for me to have to look through cartoon icons to find what I want, not be able to resize the apps, and confuse me everytime I attempt to launch one of the two version of Internet Explorer.

- I want Windows because I'm using this on a computer, not a tablet.

I'm really cracking the ****s with MS. If I am forced to use Metro, they can go to hell. I know they don't care if one person doesn't buy it, but I do not want Metro. It looks **** on the Xbox, it looks **** on WP7, it looks **** on their websites and it looks absolutely disastrous in Windows 8.

Im sorry please go learn what good design is before calling metro ugly.

I say this to everybody. Do you know why you are even calling it ugly? Its understandable that Desktop users want free moving widows as apps not Immersive apps. That does not make metro ugly. U need to get your eyes checked. Or please search the web for definitions of a good design.

Design is about alot more than those 2inch boxes showing data. Design is about ease of use. Design is about easy recognition. Intuitiveness. function and form. Its about the ease with which you can consume data in this perticular case. Its the ease of setting up the screen for ur day to day usage.

I talk alot about Ribbon UI because its a function over looks design. I believe there should be a balance between the two. Metro is the balance. Aero in its form is more over function than asthetics. But Ribbon is pure function so its really out of balance and thats why i find it ugly.

U cant call metro ugly unless it really makes u throw up. Whats the best thing about metro is that the boxes (the big icons and everything) It goes to the background after a few days of usage. What stays infront is just the data on the livetiles. I own a WP7 device. It was basically just to support MS. But metro works way better than anything else for touch input.

It makes every task simpler.

My request to MS would be to treat Desktop as a backend of Metro for power users. Or bring full metro to Desktop. There can not be this halfbaked Aero anymore. It just doesnt go with it. They have plenty of time to make the transformation.

Also Windows 8 will never fail. It will sell very well on tablets. Desktop users might take time to see how it works before they make the jump. MS are making sure desktop users get what they always wanted in windows 7. And there are plenty of mouthwatering features in Win8 for us desktop users.

I wish them best of luck with this. But no Windows 8 will not be DOA.

  • Like 1

Metro can be here to stay but there wont be people using it :) Windows 8 -> might as well go back to Windows 95, it will be more productive.

Yup:

  • Windows 95 works really well on a touchscreen (and even supports it)
  • Windows 95 supports every program made from 2000 on
  • Windows 95 is just beautiful, many people will think it's better than any other interface and/or Operating System
  • Windows 95 has a higher number, that's just so cool (it looks like that Windows 8 rubbish has been made in 1908)
  • Windows 95 will run on ARM and will support any other new hardware
  • Windows 95 supports storage drives bigger than 2 TB

  • Like 1

Yup:

  • Windows 95 works really well on a touchscreen (and even supports it)
  • Windows 95 supports every program made from 2000 on
  • Windows 95 is just beautiful, many people will think it's better than any other interface and/or Operating System
  • Windows 95 has a higher number, that's just so cool (it looks like that Windows 8 rubbish has been made in 1908)
  • Windows 95 will run on ARM and will support any other new hardware
  • Windows 95 supports storage drives bigger than 2 TB

I was trying to get point across and funny things you mentioned are Mobile related. My PC is not a giant Smart Phone.

I was trying to get point across and funny things you mentioned are Mobile related. My PC is not a giant Smart Phone.

Because phones have storage bigger than 2 TB, only run programs from the '90s and don't have any hardware to support or something?

I mean seriously, try reading more than the first line next time.

Metro can be here to stay but there wont be people using it :) Windows 8 -> might as well go back to Windows 95, it will be more productive.

if they dont want to use metro then stay with win7. no ones forcing an upgrade. People still use xp and it was released in 2001. I think people just like to see themselves complain.

Here's the fun part. Windows 7 and Vista were pretty similar and yet while one failed, the other was successful, so it's really hard to say if Windows 8 will fail or succeed.

You said what I came in here to say :)

I have to admit though im not sold on the whole Metro experience. For a tablet, particularly an arm tablet with all day battery life, im sold...for the desktop, ill wait and see but the Metro experience aside plenty of other improvements to be pumped about for Win8.

ive only tried w8 developer preview, but haven't tried install any programs i use and games.

but metro on desktop?, im having difficult to navigate around :/ guess its meant to touch screens.

and took me 3-4 mins to find shutdown button xD, i hope it will improve alot in later versions.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Same Internet Archive seemed to grab the new version https://web.archive.org/web/20...d/Setup_MakeMKV_v1.18.4.exe Here's the link to an additional file it periodically downloads https://web.archive.org/web/20260213092148/https://www.makemkv.com/sdf.bin I think update's keys, etc. To manually trigger this update, put the sdf.bin file in the root of where the program is installed. When you launch the program it will pick up the file and import it. Typically put it here: C:\Program Files (x86)\MakeMKV\sdf.bin
    • Windows 11 KB5094126, KB5093998 bugging out Office apps but it may not be Microsoft's fault by Sayan Sen Microsoft last week released Windows 11 KB5094126 and KB5093998 as the latest Patch Tuesday updates. Following that the company also published the accompanying dynamic updates under KB5094149, KB5095971, and KB5094156. Although the tech giant did not acknowledge any major problems, some users online reported various issues ranging from OneDrive and Dropbox access problems, BitLocker recovery lockouts, to blue screens and BSODs. You can read about them in this dedicated piece. While there is still no confirmation about those problems from Microsoft the company has admitted to another bug which we did not report on. The tech giant has confirmed it has received reports of an issue in which certain third-party applications may be unable to launch Microsoft Office apps or open Office documents after installing the Patch Tuesday. This affects both Windows 11 as well as Windows 10. The company says the problem impacts a subset of applications that rely on OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) automation to communicate with Microsoft Office programs. According to Microsoft, affected scenarios involve third-party software attempting to open Office applications or documents from within their own interface. In such cases, the Office program may fail to launch altogether, or the requested document may not open. Oddly there may not be any error message, which probably makes the issue difficult to diagnose. The bug affects several Office products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and other apps in the Microsoft Office suite when they are launched through the affected software. These include tax and accounting software such as CCH Engagement and Workpaper Manager, dental practice management solutions like Dentrix and Softdent, as well as the popular research and reference management tool Zotero. Microsoft adds that other applications using similar Office integration methods could also experience the same problematic behavior. To understand the issue it is important to look at OLE, the Microsoft technology involved. OLE allows different applications to work together and share data, while its Automation feature lets one program control another. Thus this enables third-party software to launch Microsoft Office apps, open documents, and perform tasks automatically without requiring users to switch between programs. Because many accounting, healthcare, research, and business applications rely on OLE automation to interact with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office apps, any disruption can break those workflows. As a result, affected software may be unable to open Office documents or launch Office applications even though the programs themselves continue to work normally. At the moment the company has not provided a permanent fix though it has confirmed that engineers are actively working on a resolution, which will be delivered through a future Windows update. As such additional details will be shared once more information becomes available. In the meantime, Microsoft recommends a simple workaround for affected users whic is to open the Office application or document directly rather than launching it through the third-party program. For enterprise customers and organizations managing larger deployments, Microsoft says an additional mitigation is available. Admins experiencing the problem on their managed devices are advised to contact Microsoft Support for business to obtain and apply the workaround.
    • It saddens me when cars are such dull colours now. Mine is bright metallic blue and I absolutely adore it for standing out in contrast to that depressing backdrop of traffic.
    • Sparkle 2.20.0 by Razvan Serea Sparkle is a free, open-source Windows optimization tool designed to make your PC faster, cleaner, and more private. With Sparkle, you can easily debloat Windows by removing unnecessary apps and services, disable Microsoft tracking to enhance privacy, and apply performance tweaks to boost speed. Its cleaner removes junk and temporary files, while every change is safe and fully reversible. Sparkle also features a modern, user-friendly interface with automatic updates, making system maintenance simple. Explore over 39 tweaks, from disabling telemetry and hibernation to optimizing network and game settings, all aimed at customizing and enhancing your Windows experience. Sparkle supports Windows 10 and 11. Sparkle 2.20.0 changelog: Debloat Tweak has animated border New homepage loading UI New Tweak Modal (Markdown Supported) Refactored GPU Detection Added Tests with vitest Added foobar2000 to apps Added Localsend to apps Updated Modal Styles Added styles for disabled inputs Added Animated Border to debloat-windows tweak Bumped dependencies Refactor System info logic for speed Tweak info modals now support Markdown Added Clear System info cache to settings Redesigned Home Page Loading UI Changed Some Icons around the app Download: Sparkle 2.20.0 | Portable | ~100.0 MB (Open Source) Links: Sparkle Website | Github | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • lol it was a typo, fixed! haha imagine an actual 4TB Gen4 NVMe for $40 in 2026
  • Recent Achievements

    • Reacting Well
      Dys Topia earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Conversation Starter
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • One Year In
      Console General earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Twozo Technologies earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Twozo Technologies earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      517
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      184
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      106
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      88
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      68
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!