Here's What Windows 8 Would Look Like Without Metro

By Nazmus Shakib Khandaker
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

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Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

It's a shame that they removed this hack in the later versions. A lot of people would probably be happier to have the choice of switching it on or off.

the only reason that the "hack" worked was because the old code wasn't removed yet in the DP
Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted
the only reason that the "hack" worked was because the old code wasn't removed yet in the DP

Oh I understand why it doesn't work anymore. I'm just saying that if the choice was still there we wouldn't have half of these Windows 8 threads with people complaining about Metro. Everyone would be happy.

Enthusiast

LegendaryRamzi

Posted
Posted

No it really isn't as you don't get any of the "under the hood" improvements that are brought to Windows 8.

Getting sick of people saying "just stick with Windows 7 then"

Metro IS the "under the hood" improvement. The desktop is the legacy part.

Legacy is necessary and Microsoft is doing an impressive job to support legacy software since forever, but somewhere they have to draw the line.

If you prefer DOS, you cannot expect Microsoft to keep building versions of windows that boot into DOS automatically. It makes no sense.

If you enjoy DOS, the windows desktop, the old startmenu and stuff like that that's OK, but you cannot expect Microsoft to keep investing in this.

This kills innovation.

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

If it was not for Tablet, we would probably not be dealing with a Win 8 Start Screen. MS moved in this direction for touch device, that's all there is to it.

What if Win XP or Win 7 are still good enough for "the people"? This is only bad because MS is not making enough money, so they have to push out new version of Windows/Office. It's the cash cow of MS...

That doesn't make sense. Of course Microsoft is making newer OS/Office versions. It's what they do. If you don't want it, don't buy it.

Grand Master

TheLegendOfMart

Posted
Posted

Metro IS the "under the hood" improvement. The desktop is the legacy part.

Legacy is necessary and Microsoft is doing an impressive job to support legacy software since forever, but somewhere they have to draw the line.

If you prefer DOS, you cannot expect Microsoft to keep building versions of windows that boot into DOS automatically. It makes no sense.

If you enjoy DOS, the windows desktop, the old startmenu and stuff like that that's OK, but you cannot expect Microsoft to keep investing in this.

This kills innovation.

I think you misunderstand what "under the hood" means.

I'm not even going to touch the ridiculously off the mark analogy.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted
Nobody is forcing you to upgrade to Windows 8 either.

A fair point, and thanks to Microsoft's decision to force Metro on me it is the option I will go for. I'll either get Windows 7 or another Mac. Heck, maybe even both and dual boot.

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

A fair point, and thanks to Microsoft's decision to force Metro on me it is the option I will go for. I'll either get Windows 7 or another Mac. Heck, maybe even both and dual boot.

Here we go again with the "forcing" issue. Last I checked, they're not. You even admit as much, so why do you keep saying it? If you're that much ****ed about using Microsoft's OS, why not make your own?

  • 123456789A and oliver182
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Grand Master

TheLegendOfMart

Posted
Posted

Nobody is forcing you to upgrade to Windows 8 either.

I have two issues with this.

1) Any future Windows OS is also going to be geared for Metro so you will be forever stuck on Windows 7

2) If you don't speak up about it then Microsoft won't know theres a large portion of people who dont like Windows 8, which is why I'm sick of people telling me to shut up and put up with it.

Here we go again with the "forcing" issue. Last I checked, they're not. You even admit as much, so why do you keep saying it? If you're that much ****ed about using Microsoft's OS, why not make your own?

Because Microsoft has the monopoly on the desktop OS. If you don't want to lose compatibility of your hundreds if not thousands of dollars/pounds worth of software and games then you are pretty much FORCED to buy another Windows OS.

Support for Windows 7 won't last forever, once 8 is out and the focus turns to 9, 7 will be an afterthought for developers and things won't get backported just like a lot of stuff doesn't support XP thesedays.

Use your common sense instead of being all defensive because someone doesnt like your precious Windows 8.

Grand Master

Glassed Silver

Posted
Posted

The smarta** attitude of "buy or don't buy, but let's not talk about "what if"s if we cannot change them" is what drives me out from these threads as of late.

I used to be passionate about discussing, now I realize that everyone has a set of opinions they subscribe to and some even go to lengths to tell people how they must accept or not buy.

It's ridiculous, because eventually everyone will have to upgrade their OS, you can't expect me to run Windows 7 for the next 20 years for example.

Alternative OS? I run a Mac, so it's not even my main OS anymore, but I definitely still have to deal with Windows in several occasions.

My crazy belief is that companies try to serve customers, so talking about their paths and maybe trying to influence their decisions seems perfectly okay to me.

Even needed by concept. Hell, companies PAY to know my wishes...

You could debate how effective all the talk is, but don't belittle people who "are stuck in the past". That point I don't even want to start arguing about.

I don't know what motivated me to write this, as all of this is for nothing, I won't convince ONE SINGLE person who doesn't already feel like this already, but maybe there is one point I want to get across:

The attitude of some on here drives me away from forums or actually the metro debates and many more topics I just don't bother about anymore, which ultimately seems to be the case for many more and affect the health of this forum.

That's my motivation I guess, to post a reminder of why this forum is on the decline.

So I guess, I'm just off-topic, carry on people...

Glassed Silver:mac

Experienced

Kelxin

Posted
Posted

My plans, long term, are to migrate many of my clients over to a linux OS that use RDS for their main day to day operations. It will fix so many sides of this entire debate, and hopefully send a clear messages to Microsoft. You don't listen, we don't purchase.

Grand Master

Nick H. Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted
Here we go again with the "forcing" issue. Last I checked, they're not. You even admit as much, so why do you keep saying it? If you're that much ****ed about using Microsoft's OS, why not make your own?

Ok, I admit that they aren't "forcing me" to use Windows 8 and Metro. What I meant to say is that if I wanted to upgrade my OS to Windows 8 then I am stuck with Metro, and my whole original point was that it would have been nice if they had left the choice there rather than removing it.

You're also right about it being Microsoft's OS, they can do what they want. I'm thinking from a business perspective though, and given the obvious divide between people and Metro, I was just thinking that it would have made better business sense to allow people to choose.

Fragmentation is a bad thing, right? Android has shown as much. Surely by removing the choice Microsoft are increasing the level of fragmentation that already occurs? And let's not forget how stubborn Windows XP has been when it comes to retirement. Making this move with Windows 8, are they trying to make Windows 7 have a similar retirement process?

  • trag3dy and Glassed Silver
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Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

If it was not for Tablet, we would probably not be dealing with a Win 8 Start Screen. MS moved in this direction for touch device, that's all there is to it.

What if Win XP or Win 7 are still good enough for "the people"? This is only bad because MS is not making enough money, so they have to push out new version of Windows/Office. It's the cash cow of MS...

While tablets may have been the driving force behind the touch-enabling of Windows 8 (since the existing touch-enabled devices for Windows 7 didn't seem to be) why is that necessarily bad?

Here's how I see where the various Windows 8 *announced* SKUs compare to Windows 7 SKUs:

Windows 7 Starter is replaced by WindowsRT - as opposed to being just emerging markets, it's available everywhere - just not on x86.

Windows 7 Home Basic/Premium *and* Windows 7 Business - replaced by Windows 8 Core. This is the lowest level of Windows 8 for x86, and thus the start of the Win32/WinRT tag-team. Unlike WindowsRT, neither is exclusive; thus Windows 8 Core is a true superset of WindowsRT.

Windows 8 Pro - replaces Windows 7 (both Professional and Ultimate). Unlike Windows 8 Core, Windows Media Center is a no-cost option.

Windows 8 Enterprise - replaces Windows 7 Enterprise. Unlike Windows 7 Enterprise (which actually lacked some features that Windows 7 Professional included), Windows 8 Enterprise is a superset of Windows 8 Pro.

Microsoft literally had to (no choice) deal with tablets - as you correctly pointed out, Windows and Office are Microsoft's cash cows; for the inroads tablets (both iOS and Android) are making at the low end and in niches, staying put (and repeating the mistake made with that five year lag between XP and Vista) is not an option - wait another four years and the combo of iOS and Android will have completely eaten Windows' lunch. The problem Microsoft faces with the WinRT API is that it is late - compared to iOS and Android. If Microsoft had done with those that wanted a one-API OS wanted (kept RT touch-only), who would develop for it, especially as an alternative to Android or iOS, which are far more mature? Developers are another cash cow for Microsoft; after all, Visual Studio isn't exactly small beer. Thanks to the expiration of all those "thou shalt add nothing" uber diktats that hobbled Microsoft, the road for Microsoft to take was quite obvious - and actually doable.

However, those that are unhappy with the inclusion of the WinRT API seem to be forgetting that said inclusion is NOT responsible for *any* of the issues Windows 8 has had. While there have been issues with WinRT apps (compared to Win32 counterparts, where they exist) said issues are entirely due to the features or lack thereof of each API - in particular that WinRT's API is extremely limited featurewise compared to Win32. However, other than core parts of WinRT included with the OS itself, you can ignore it as far as apps go - in fact, I largely have outside of games. Just because a new API exists does not mean that you HAVE to use it.

Grand Master

BajiRav

Posted
Posted

Are you saying that it is impossible to install Windows XP now? Last time I checked (which was this morning at work) I found that I could install Windows XP on any of our computers.

This is my point. While it may not come as standard on a computer anymore, there is still the choice to install Windows XP or not. However, there is no longer a choice with Metro, but there was one before.

No. I said, you can't buy XP anymore, all you can buy today is Windows 7.

You never had a choice of Metro or not-Metro in Windows 8. The hack was possible in an early-alpha/beta build and not a released Windows version.

Grand Master

BajiRav

Posted
Posted

Because Microsoft has the monopoly on the desktop OS. If you don't want to lose compatibility of your hundreds if not thousands of dollars/pounds worth of software and games then you are pretty much FORCED to buy another Windows OS.

Please. This is such a lousy argument. If you have invested lots of monies in Windows then you are forced to use whatever you have now. You can stay with Windows 7 as long as you want. All your existing stuff will continue to work.

Ok, I admit that they aren't "forcing me" to use Windows 8 and Metro. What I meant to say is that if I wanted to upgrade my OS to Windows 8 then I am stuck with Metro, and my whole original point was that it would have been nice if they had left the choice there rather than removing it.

You're also right about it being Microsoft's OS, they can do what they want. I'm thinking from a business perspective though, and given the obvious divide between people and Metro, I was just thinking that it would have made better business sense to allow people to choose.

Fragmentation is a bad thing, right? Android has shown as much. Surely by removing the choice Microsoft are increasing the level of fragmentation that already occurs? And let's not forget how stubborn Windows XP has been when it comes to retirement. Making this move with Windows 8, are they trying to make Windows 7 have a similar retirement process?

Fragmentation was always a problem with Windows but unlike Android, the core OS has been stable in terms of feature set and users are not at the mercy of hardware makers to upgrade/downgrade.

I think one of the reason Microsoft is making this bold change is how solid 7 is. They know that most of their cash-cow customers (i.e. enterprise) have just moved to 7 and are likely to skip 8 regardless of the new UI.

Experienced

Kelxin

Posted
Posted

No. I said, you can't buy XP anymore, all you can buy today is Windows 7.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=windows+xp

  • Glassed Silver and Nick H.
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Proficient

oliver182

Posted
Posted

What if Win XP or Win 7 are still good enough for "the people"? This is only bad because MS is not making enough money, so they have to push out new version of Windows/Office. It's the cash cow of MS...

mmm I don't know but last time I checked most companies work to make money, that's what they exist for in the first place, they are not here to make anyone a favor, don't like it, don't buy it, as simple as that.

Mentor

argonite

Posted
Posted

I think one of the reason Microsoft is making this bold change is how solid 7 is. They know that most of their cash-cow customers (i.e. enterprise) have just moved to 7 and are likely to skip 8 regardless of the new UI.

This is a very good point and one that I hadn't thought of before.

Grand Master

BajiRav

Posted
Posted

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_scat_229661_ln?rh=n%3A229661%2Ck%3Ams+dos+5.0&keywords=ms+dos+5.0&ie=UTF8&qid=1342022919&scn=229661&h=e891d5b89f19836c8e260c003b3ae8485940914e

Grand Master

Brandon Live Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

You're also right about it being Microsoft's OS, they can do what they want. I'm thinking from a business perspective though, and given the obvious divide between people and Metro, I was just thinking that it would have made better business sense to allow people to choose.

The thing is, there is no such divide. There's the echo chamber of forums like this one, and then there's the real world :-) The latter being full of people who have never and probably will never hear the term "Metro" in reference to Windows. They'll be just as "divided" over Metro as they were "divided" over Luna or the old XP "bring back the Start menu, we don't like the Start panel" debates.

  • Calum, Pygmy_Hippo and ahhell
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Grand Master

.Neo

Posted
Posted

Here we go again with the "forcing" issue. Last I checked, they're not. You even admit as much, so why do you keep saying it? If you're that much ****ed about using Microsoft's OS, why not make your own?

He's considering switching to OS X.

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