Windows 8 adoption rate almost at a standstill, far behind Windows 7

[Andre S. Veteran]

That's an interesting theory. And would have been ingenious. Only if Windows 8 is supposed to be consumer oriented, someone forgot to tell the core app people. Xbox Music and Video apps can only be a part of Willy Wonka's grand domination scheme. The Zune guys must've been in a corner for a timeout as well. :)

If it weren't for all the great enterprise features I would agree with you. Or if there had been a GPO for enterprise to bypass the Start Page.

I didn't understand what you said about Xbox and Zune. I'm saying Windows 8 is consumer-oriented because its main push is the Windows Store, its new app model and UI paradigm, which are clearly designed for consumer tablets, and are rather impediments than an improvement for business users. I'm not aware of which enterprise features you speak of, but it seems to me like the focus of this new version clearly goes against entreprise users.

[BajiRav]

I didn't understand what you said about Xbox and Zune. I'm saying Windows 8 is consumer-oriented because its main push is the Windows Store, its new app model and UI paradigm, which are clearly designed for consumer tablets, and are rather impediments than an improvement for business users. I'm not aware of which enterprise features you speak of, but it seems to me like the focus of this new version clearly goes against entreprise users.

He meant if it was only consumer-oriented then at least the basic music/video apps would have been as good as Zune. As it stands today, both Xbox music and video are horrible pos.

[Noir Angel]

"Tinkertoys", huh? Is that why businesses are adopting them en masse? Is that why I have a buddy working for a small business who develops ONLY iOS apps for business use? Is that why schools are using them as education assets? And is that why many people can find that all they need is an iPad for their needs?

I've seen no evidence of them being adopted in those numbers by businesses or schools

[TPreston]

I didn't understand what you said about Xbox and Zune. I'm saying Windows 8 is consumer-oriented because its main push is the Windows Store, its new app model and UI paradigm, which are clearly designed for consumer tablets, and are rather impediments than an improvement for business users. I'm not aware of which enterprise features you speak of, but it seems to me like the focus of this new version clearly goes against entreprise users.

Well I think that's coming from a position of ignorance because its not since vista that we have had so many new features for enterprise. Starting with hardware independent backups a feature which Acronis and the like have been trying to make work for years and charging a fair bit for.

With windows 8 you can quite literally image a drive from a netbook and restore it to a core i7 desktop. As long as you don't mix x86 and x64 your images are totally hardware independent.

There are major shortfalls with the store specifically the inability to use WSUS to update applications you don't own (without using a replay attack to capture the appx)

He meant if it was only consumer-oriented then at least the basic music/video apps would have been as good as Zune. As it stands today, both Xbox music and video are horrible pos.

Because they don't support your pirated movie and music collection ? Xbox Video is awesome with Tagged MP4 displays the posters and metadata.

[TheLegendOfMart]

Because they don't support your pirated movie and music collection ? Xbox Video is awesome with Tagged MP4 displays the posters and metadata.

I buy and rip Blu-rays to keep on my NAS, MKV has far better support for Video, Audio, Subtitles, etc.. than MP4. Am I a pirate too?

[TPreston]

No just ignorant of video containers and their usage. Should have used MP4 with tagging,

[Rickkins]

Just checking in quickly.... yup, same old same old. So predictable, So tedious.

[Dot Matrix]

I've seen no evidence of them being adopted in those numbers by businesses or schools

A simple search is all you need.

[BajiRav]

Because they don't support your pirated movie and music collection ? Xbox Video is awesome with Tagged MP4 displays the posters and metadata.

Wow, just wow! :rolleyes:

All my videos in "Xbox Video" are actually my home videos (most being AVCHD over last 4-5 years, rest are mp4s from my iPhone/WP). So yeah - Xbox video is a big pile of ****.

My music collection is mostly mp3s with about 10% m4as and all properly tagged. I have no problem using it with either Zune or WMP.

I frequently rent movies on my Xbox and I expected it to work better when they expanded it to Windows.

If you actually used these apps instead of attacking complete strangers without any reason, then you might come to a realization that I am not alone in complaining about these apps. They are horrible, slow and overall put metro design language in a bad light.

...and yes if the apps were actually good, they would work with the devices charm on a reliable basis. They don't and the easier way for me to play my home movies/photos on my TV(through Xbox) is still good old WMP sharing. That says a lot about their overall quality.

[Malisk]

did extremetech make that chart? I wonder where they got there data from. maybe I didn't read properly I actually just skimmed article. I wonder where they got their data from.

It's in the second paragraph, you lazy man.

[siah1214]

Because they don't support your pirated movie and music collection ? Xbox Video is awesome with Tagged MP4 displays the posters and metadata.

Wow dude. I love Windows 8 but even I can admit that the music and video apps blow chunks compared to Zune.

[TheLegendOfMart]

No just ignorant of video containers and their usage. Should have used MP4 with tagging,

MP4 supports SSA subtitles and DTS-HD?

[TPreston]

MP4 supports SSA subtitles and DTS-HD?

It has its own loseless audio codec and subtitle format. Do some research as to the container Dolby uses for that codec :rolleyes:

You took the streams out of the correct container to begin with.

[TheLegendOfMart]

Whats the point in converting everything to another format when I can just drop them into an MKV untouched?

[PGHammer]

Touch is "new" in the sense that we finally have "pure" technology to take advantage of it, such as smartphones, tablets, and now Windows 8, which at the earliest came about in 2007 after the iPhone explosion.

Motion is a completely new consumer piece with the introduction of Microsoft's Kinect 3 years ago.

Wacom tech is finding itself on more and more devices - go back 10 years, and you wouldn't find them in the average consumer's house. Today you can.

Voice control is now a new household name thanks to Apple's Siri, released just 2 years ago.

This isn't even touching the experimental technologies being developed this very second, such as augmented reality. Shall I go on?

Voice is a simply more *accepted* thanks to Siri - it was usable on PCs and Macs prior to Siri. In fact the tech used by Siri came from Dragon Systems (now distributed by *catchall* company NUANCE), and has been bundled with any Windows or Mac version of Naturally Speaking for over a decade. More accepted, but not new.

humanz - can't be taken seriously? Really? All because of the ONLY UI feature Windows 8 lacks compared to Windows 7? I use Windows 8 for everything I used Windows 7 for. So do all other users of Windows 8 - on new and existing hardware. It isn't how YOU would use Windows; however, defining it as unusable for that reason is "opinion" - not fact. In fact, it flies in the face of logic. How often per day does Dot Matrix post here? How often a day do I post on Neowin? Neither of us run Windows 7 bare-metal. (I have a single recently created Windows 7 x64 VM - for testing of IE10 for Windows 7.) I run many MANY applications on it - both ModernUI and Win32. I game on it and TEST games and other software on it. If it were as bad as you said, neither Dot OR I could do that - yet we both do. Further I have far older hardware than Dot Matrix, with most of it dating back Windows Vista - if not XP. (Only my GPU is of recent vintage.)

[+Fahim S. MVC]

Further I have far older hardware than Dot Matrix, with most of it dating back Windows Vista - if not XP. (Only my GPU is of recent vintage.)

Most of my hardware is from the same era... my processor is 7 years old.

[matt4444]

The $200 price mark, is defiantly a main factor in the standstill. Just glad I grabbed multiple copies while they were still at ?20.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Further I have far older hardware than Dot Matrix, with most of it dating back Windows Vista - if not XP. (Only my GPU is of recent vintage.)

What is the big deal about that hardware? Back then there was AMD quadcore, Intel Core 2 duo and Core 2 Quad. Still PLENTY of CPU power for today's Operating system and future ones as well.

My Main 4 monitor workstation was built 4 years ago in 2008.

i7 920

12 GB (upgraded from 6)

Still chews through anything like butter and will for years to come.

[MorganX]

What is the big deal about that hardware? Back then there was AMD quadcore, Intel Core 2 duo and Core 2 Quad. Still PLENTY of CPU power for today's Operating system and future ones as well.

My Main 4 monitor workstation was built 4 years ago in 2008.

i7 920

12 GB (upgraded from 6)

Still chews through anything like butter and will for years to come.

Warwagon, if you have 12GB of RAM you're still ahead of the average desktop by a longshot and it runs fine because it can keep the OS in memory regardless of how many apps you're running unless one is Photoshop with large image.

Like it or love it, you should all do what I'm doing today. Take off work, plug in your replacement Xbox Wireless Controller and Receiver for PC you got today, and dominate the Dark Side with the #1 Modern UI app available, Pinball FX 2 with the Star Wars table Pack.

May the force be with you all, if not the Start Menu!

[+Warwagon MVC]

Warwagon, if you have 12GB of RAM you're still ahead of the average desktop by a longshot and it runs fine because it can keep the OS in memory regardless of how many apps you're running unless one is Photoshop with large image.

Like it or love it, you should all do what I'm doing today. Take off work, plug in your replacement Xbox Wireless Controller and Receiver for PC you got today, and dominate the Dark Side with the #1 Modern UI app available, Pinball FX 2 with the Star Wars table Pack.

May the force be with you all, if not the Start Menu!

Well I had 6 and that worked great for me The only reason I added another 6 was because I use virtual Machines with Vmware to reference previous version of windows for customer support. I was referencing your CPU. A person can always add more ram.

[MorganX]

Well I had 6 and that worked great for me The only reason I added another 6 was because I use virtual Machines with Vmware to reference previous version of windows for customer support. I was referencing your CPU. A person can always add more ram.

Are you telling me you have such disdain for Metro that you would rather run VMware on Win 7, than Hyper-V in Windows 8? I'd have to say pay the $5 and get Start8.

If you have VMware in your Datacenter, I can understand. We are a VMware DC but I have set the direction to move to a Hyper-V and Win Datacenter 2k12 environment. That plan began 2 years ago and with the recent improvements (to Hyper-V), will come to fruition over the next 18 months.

While I think management which led to the Windows 8, let's call it chaos, at the moment, leaves a lot to be desired and managers to be fired, the Server Group are my heroes. Freeing us from the exorbitant VMware and Citrix annual support tax. Second only to Oracle that the SQL Group saved us from years ago.

[PGHammer]

Let's face the reality. Unless buying new machine which may include the Windows 8, most consumers won't simply upgrade to the latest product when available. If I can work on Windows 7, why should I bother about 8? We won't go ahead and buy a new TV or car or handphone or backpack when new model is available isn't it?

And I said that I understood that. However, such a decision is indeed part of what I referred to as *inertia* - a consumer or business won't replace anything unless forced to.

Upgrades (of anything) have to be seen as worthwhile to the person upgrading.

Windows 8 faces hurdles unlike previous versions of Windows - and yes, the UI change is a very large part of that. (I stated that back at the release of the Consumer Preview, so it's definitely NOT news to me.)

However, unlike Dot Matrix, I am also quite aware that resistance to UI change is far from unique to Windows, and that the resistance TO such a change is almost never logical.

But I also am NOT going to let the very defenders OF that UI blow smoke and say things that are not only not true, but are provably not true - and use them to bolster their OPINION - which they are trying to posit as fact.

[PGHammer]

What is the big deal about that hardware? Back then there was AMD quadcore, Intel Core 2 duo and Core 2 Quad. Still PLENTY of CPU power for today's Operating system and future ones as well.

My Main 4 monitor workstation was built 4 years ago in 2008.

i7 920

12 GB (upgraded from 6)

Still chews through anything like butter and will for years to come.

Warwagon, the point I am making by presenting the data is that Windows 8 does not require all brand-new hardware.

My desktop is, in fact, OF that vintage; the CPU is an Intel Q6600 - specifically, the dual-dual known as Kentsfield. (Two E6600 Conroe CPUs sharing a die - which AMD made scathing jokes about.)

My motherboard is the ASUS P5G41-M LX2/GB. (MicroATX motherboard built around Intel's G41 chipset. It is quite capable of swallowing any LGA775 CPU, from Celeron DC to the Yorkfield-based dual-dual Intel quad-cores; however, the 4 GB and DDR2 RAM limitations of the G41 chipset are a definite holdback. I bought the motherboard for reason of price. However, I also bought the motherboard prior to even the early rumors of Windows 8.)

Only my GPU - Visiontek's HD5450 iSilence - is of recent vintage. (Even that is a compromise - if you are familiar with AMD GPU naming, you'll recognize the HD5450 as a Mobility part in discrete-desktop clothing. Like my motherboard, it is a price-driven compromise.)

The point I have been trying to make is that, unlike most previous versions of Windows, Windows 8 may be more CAPABLE of using newer hardware than Windows 7, but it no more required it any more than Vista did, in all reality.

All I have been asking is that Windows 8 be evaluated on its merits as an operating system. If Windows 8 doesn't meet your needs, that's fine - Windows 7 isn't going anywhere. (Again, that isn't anything new, and especially from me - I pointed that out during both the Consumer and Release Previews of Windows 8.)

Why is getting to the nuts and bolts of the issues regarding the UI changes between 7 and 8 worse than pulling teeth?

[MidTxWRX]

Who says it's a recommended upgrade to windows 7? No one did. That's just your own point of view.

Who says it's not?

[PGHammer]

There are reasons TO recommend Windows 8 - especially if you can use one (or better yet, the majority) of the changes, enhancements, and improvements compared to Windows 7 - especially changes that Windows 7 will never see. However, the two biggest reasons why folks that haven't upgraded by now likely won't (except in extremis) are due to the lack of the Start menu (because it's like a calling-card to all too many folks due to it being rather obvious) and the price - look at how many folks are claiming poverty, even when it doesn't really fly.

My scorn isn't over folks not upgrading - but over the smoke-blowing as to why they aren't upgrading.