My personal favorite Windows 8 feature - plug in a mouse, but not a keyboard. Go to a text field. Windows 8 figures that if you have a mouse you "must" have a keyboard even though it can plainly see you don't. So the on-screen keyboard doesn't come up. Even if you load it in the desktop pane, it won't be available in other panes (like the Store).
The solution is to unplug the mouse, and then the keyboard shows up. The level of "broken" this represents in not thoroughly thinking through the change in their UI probably explains the level of resistance to the product. I still run it on all my machines because most of what I do I can do inside the Desktop pane (even on my Win 8 tablet). I can only imagine how painful life would be to an RT user...
That reminds me of one of my first experiences with a Mac (Mac 512, I think). Borrowed one from the office, forgot the mouse, figured "Hey, I am an advanced user, used to being able to toggle around with Tab and what not, I should be fine."
RT user checking in - as long as remote desktop works i'm good (though i'm connecting to a win 8 pc).
Why did i buy a 499$ remote desktop machine? Cause i don't need to carry computing power with me, and the snap in keyboard + usb port (charge my phone/plug in a mouse) + expandable memory is exactly what i need.
You can do EXACTLY same thing with an Asus Transformer, which is cheaper, and works just as well. It even supports multitouch gestures when connected remotely to your Win8 PC.
most require a desktop client to be installed on the other machine - in instances where you have only user permissions on the other machine (work) this becomes troublesome.
I'm not talking about software that needs a server (like VNC); I'm literally talking about clients that talk the Microsoft RDP protocol. There are plenty to choose from for either platforms
Also if your work using something like Citrix; clients exist for both platforms for that as well.
RDP is a protocol implemented directly in dozens of clients in both the Apple app store and Google's play store. No need for installs on the target machine.
i did look at the asus tablets, and an HP that was similar (but ran full win 8 - much like an ultrabook that snapped into its keyboard), but i decided on the surface based on my personal preferences. I actually started out with a Nexus - it was great, but found i would consistently put down the tablet to do something on my pc that i got frustrated trying to do on the tablet. Further, the surface hardware quality was worth the extra 130$ over the transformer in my opinion.
TDLR: Hardware quality + preference of metro over android
Microsoft made a mistake trying to force a made-for-touch interface on PC users, and in the end the strategy is not that different than forcing a PC interface on a touch device. It may actually be worse, because at least in that case you would be familiar with the interface, so at least it would have that advantage.
I think this video explains most of the problems with Windows 8:
Microsoft likely anticipated weaker demand for Win8 which is why they are focusing their promotions on the consumer market at this point. Once they work out the issues they will repackage a new version for enterprises running Win7.
Microsoft knows that the consumer desktop market is dwindling and that competing with Apple and Samsung in the consumer mobile space isn't viable at this point. However, the enterprise desktop market isn't going anywhere at this point and leveraging their enterprise desktop dominance as a way into mobile enterprise devices is their best option. IT managers will prefer an end-to-end Win9 solution for all desktops and mobile devices over managing disparate architectures.
Wow that swiping issue sounds pretty bad. My Sony Vaio doesn't let my touchpad accept swiping gestures and I'd never heard of that happening before. Are there certain laptops this happens with?
I see Windows 8, like Vista before it, as the trial run for the OS that Microsoft intends to sell to enterprises. Work out the UI kinks, etc., and have a battle-tested version 2 they can ship to businesses with long-term support.
It also probably helps that by the time Windows 9 is released, people will have adjusted to the new Metro (Civic?) interface and so the leap won't be as big for businesses looking to upgrade.
The problems with Vista are in no way comparable with the problems in Windows 8. Microsoft did only kill minor great features with Vista (like Shell column handlers, e.h. revision number with TortoiseSvn) but not big important things like the start menu.
I wonder if Microsoft really brings the start menu back in windows 9. If not I'm out
I think the problem that exist is that computers have reached the level of being good enough to not replace or upgrade. If you had a PC with a Pentium 4 and 256 or 512 MB of RAM you would be in serious pain trying to run a modern web browser or do much of anything, but a Core2Duo with 4GB of RAM is more than enough for 90% of people out there. There is no longer a compelling reason to upgrade when your computer is no longer a major pain point and is good enough, compounded with the fact that the world economy is in the trash can and people are holding on to more dollars[1].
Windows Vista is a special case, it took a lot of flack that Windows 7 would have taken if Vista had not came before it.
Windows Vista broke compatibility(for the better of security) by making it so applications could only write to the User lever directories and would need elevated permissions to make system wide changes, Windows Vista also brought the first major x64 push from Microsoft, which left people with many peripherals that wouldn't work because there weren't 64 bit drivers available. In the time from Vista to 7 applications where updated to follow proper programming guidelines and 64 bit drivers where released, Vista in essence took the blow so Windows 7 could be a success.
In my opinion Windows Vista also has some serious performance issues, for example its caching was way too aggressive and would eat up all available RAM and leave little to none for running programs(I got out of memory errors in Photoshop while Vista had 700+MB of RAM "cached").
True, I never quite understood why people seem to hate Vista but love 7.
I have a laptop with Vista (and a recent SP) and 7 on my desktop. Besides a few UI differences I find it hard to tell them apart at all.
Most of the changes between XP and Vista that I disliked on Vista seem to have persisted unchanged in 7. I find network configuration much more confusing on Vista and 7 than on XP for example.
Perhaps earlier versions of Vista did have issues with memory management but as far as I can tell they have been improved by recent service packs.
I think it's due to poor management of the product and its release.
From my experience, Vista was hated due to very poor driver support, the ever-annoying UAC, and the fact that the new Aero UI (along with misc. other system services) took a significant toll on system resources.
At least the first 2 issues were both largely resolved via service packs, which is why you're probably not suffering much from those problems. The last issue was jointly resolved through some refinement of Aero, and the fact that the marginal resource cost became less significant once more powerful systems became available at cheaper costs.
The crux of the problem though, is that many people found under Vista that many of their devices quit working, their PC was slower, and they were getting pop-ups from UAC for basically everything that they clicked on.
Vista wasn't terrible per se, but it's negatives outweighed the positives for many people, and when you boil that result down to a binary value representing whether you think it was "good" or "bad", then the result is going to be "bad".
MS should seriously consider releasing a patch that makes Win8 look like Win7 on desktops (shouldn't be very hard). Win8 has a fair number of improvements under the hood.
My guess is that someone in the Windows org has this working.
(I won't get into the quality of the Win8 UI, since I have not used it yet. Maybe it's the bee's knees and I'm just believing all the anti-hype).
It'd still be a mixed bag. Some settings and preferences are accessed in through the control center (of the desktop app), while others are in the Metro settings. Apps purchased in the app store would open fullscreen in Metro (unless they'd display Metro applications in windows on the desktop). Metro is not truly separate, but it is also not well-integrated.
Windows 8 is an operating system for tablets. On desktops and laptops it's an experiment at most - touch screens are not ubiquitous, and it remains to be seen whether they will be successful on 'traditional computers'.
I think everyone would be better off if Microsoft had released Windows 8 as a tablet operating system, providing other improvements as a service pack for Windows 7. But they are probably making a bet: businesses will stick with Windows 7 for a while, and they are probably hoping that consumers get as much Metro-exposure as possible via Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Windows RT.
I don't like it. So, I'll stick with OS X on the desktop and iOS/WP8 on phones ;).
Edit: I wanted to add that I do like Metro a lot... For touch devices.
Microsoft have two main customers: OEMs that install Windows on their laptops and desktops, and enterprise who use the easy collaboration between Office and Windows Server based products to administer their businesses.
They are actively moving against one of their main customers (OEMs) by trying to directly compete with them on hardware. This is a business 101 blunder that comes from not understand what you are selling and why you are selling it.
Microsoft is losing the second main customer through deprecation of old assets (VB6 compatibility issues, etc), and by drastically changing their product so that expensive training and orientation is needed to transition users. In addition, the new OS does not even improve workflow for the main Windows user: an office drone updating Excel worksheets and using Outlook email. Microsoft is also losing their handle on the developer mindset as larger numbers of developers transition to Web/iOS/Android platforms for bread-and-butter applications.
This is a now classic case of a business losing track of their target market, and they will suffer deeply if they don't make rapid and enormous culture and product changes within the next 2-3 years.
I like how people comment on the UI of Win 8 when they clearly have not used it.
The new Modern(ex Metro) UI is a big Start menu(now called start screen). You go to it only when you login to your machine after restart,
after a login from sleep/hibernate/lock if you have left it on the desktop , it stays there.
Everything else is like or better than Win 7.
Also you only go to the start screen when you need to find or start an app.
Yes , for some users it would suck to see the Start Screen after booting, would be nice if there was option to select which screen to show after boot.
Also , the Start Screen is very good tool for organizing Apps. You can create columns of apps (not automatically though) by type , use case or whatever order your heart desires.
And i find the start screen better replacement of the desktop for placing my icons ( i dislike cluttered desktops as i see it more often than the Start Screen)
If you close/open a lot of apps due to memory constraints then you have to leave the desktop a lot and it's jarring. The start screen makes it slower to launch apps when you have a lot of apps you frequently used due to scrolling. I just want a fast way to launch apps.
You are right, that can be painful. One solution to this might be to just pin your most frequent apps to the taskbar instead?
(browsers/windows explorer/photoshop/whatever you use ) :)
p.s. you can move around the pinned icons on the start screen, move the most frequent more to the left so you don't have to scroll :)
Windows 8 has bad connotation associated with it and there is no going back. And it's all due to a UI that can be ignored completely. Funny how that happens.
It's a solid incremental upgrade that they will miss out on. Everything you said is absolutely true.
The problem I have with that chart and the article - Vista was unpopular and didn't deliver on a lot of it was supposed to. So, people stayed on XP. When Win7 came out, it was a solid rev from both XP and Vista. Thus, the strong uptake in upgrading.
With Win8 - you have an install base that is already fairly content with Win7, a new interface that gets mixed reviews in the trade press -- yet people who use it find things they both like and dislike, and as others have stated computers have been "good enough" for awhile.
I'm not sure if/how Win8 will play out, but corporate upgrade cycles and OEMs will play heavily into that. That said, a number of formerly PC only corporate environments are becoming more Apple friendly, which will also have an impact.
I'm having a worse experience with Windows 8, than I had with Windows 7. My printer didn't work until a few days ago, when it started printing in the middle of the night - discreet driver update? - and my installation was suddenly deactivated, so now I get the most annoying activation prompt (which fails) constantly. Especially since it directs me to the tablet OS to do so.
It's also absurd, that it takes something like five seconds for a clicked link in MetroTwit to open in my desktop browser.
I run window 8 and its a solid upgrade. It feels faster and has incremental updates to various parts of the OS. (Native mounting of ISOs was a nice surprise)
Only down side? The lack of start menu. But since that can be easily fixed with Start8 (Google it), then there is no reason to not upgrade.
If you run windows 7, then stop wasting time and upgrade to 8.
I have Windows 7 on my desktop (for gaming, needless to say) and it works fine - so I don't see why I should spend £25 on it (that's six pints of beer - or 12 if I want a physical disc) for a nebulous vague claim of "it feels faster" and native ISO mounting that I'll never use (native ISO ripping would be mildly helpful, but it's still not that big a pain point). And no, I don't want to arse about googling for 3rd-party apps to restore functionality that worked fine in the old version.
My guess is this kind of sentiment explains the slow sales - Windows 7 is good enough for almost everyone, and Microsoft don't have a great brand in this area given Vista (and ME), and many underwhelming Office updates.
My enterprise is not even considering Win 8. We have 5000+ PCs to manage and there's no business reason whatsoever to upgrade. It was hard enough to get our users to deal effectively with their upgrade to Office 2010...(who moved my cheese!) Windows 8 would grind the company to a halt.
Bought a Samsung 840 Pro SSD drive just after xmas. I decided that given I was going to do a fresh install of Windows, it may as well be Windows 8. Bought upgrade for $39, downloaded iso, created a USB boot disk...
Thought I would format the drive before install, so booted up BartPE to format/partition the SSD (single primary 100%, 1024 block size), then rebooted to install Windows 8. Wouldn't activate due to it apparently not being an upgrade on an existing installation (woops!). Turns out I just needed to create a [N]:\Windows folder on one of the other disk drives before I installed. Anyways, had to reinstall it again..
At first I suffered revulsion, I mean, 17 years of muscle memory moving mouse to start button does not die easily. I was almost tempted to wipe it and re-install Windows 7.
As I have started modifying/customising the o/s, I'm beginning to like it more. I vaguely remember hating Windows 7 when I first upgraded from XP (I never bought vista)
Ctrl+Esc serves as a nice way to swap between metro/classic. It just sucks that there was less integration between Metro and desktop apps - they could have done something to make it more seamless surely?
Even though Windows 8 has only been out a couples of months, there are a fair few patches necessary
I honestly don't understand much of the fuss regarding the removal of the start menu (replaced by the start screen). For one, I spend 99% of my time on the desktop (which is an app in the metro interface). This comes as no surprise, considering that people didn't spend much time on the start menu. Second, the start screen / metro is easier to use than the start menu. If an app isn't pinned to the dock, I press the windows key and start typing the name of the application. Then I press enter. The application starts.
The Start screen / metro stays out of the way. There are improvements that can be made, sure, but it's not horrible. As a whole, Windows 8 provides better performance. Plus the upgrade was cheap ($15 for me).
I agree, having set up my first couple of systems for stand alone users and a Server 2012 with Remote Desktop Services for a group of users.
As long as a keyboard is handy with the Windows Start key, no worries. Start Menu? Windows Start. Charms sidebar? Windows C. All Programs menu? Windows Z. Logout? Windows, click the login name, Log Out.
The zones for the mouse/touch for the Start Menu and Charms sidebar a too sensitive, so I just show folks the Start key on the keyboard.
The hardest part now is removing all of the cruft systems integrators are shoving into the Start Menu, especially if they are live-feed updated content - Just like remoting into a system that has yahoo.com or msn.com as the home page: I have to wait awhile before the UI is responsive again to a remote user. Can't have those flash-based ads slack in performance, can we?
I have like 10 frequently used apps that I had pinned to the start menu and launching them is a pain with having to search or if you pin them on the metro desktop its a lot of scrolling due to the large tiles. Plus there's a contextual switch that takes a user out of the zone with the entire screen switching especially when you have to close and open different apps constantly due to memory constraints, so that's a lot of jarring context switching.
Does anyone else find it problematic that the data in the graph only reflects Windows 8 usage until December 22nd? It could completely be missing out on the post Christmas activations.
Isn't part of the problem that the hardware market hasn't yet put out a good selection of touchscreen devices (tablets, laptops, monitors) to take advantage of Windows 8's core upgrades/features yet?
I was in Fry's Electronics last week, went to the laptop section, and couldn't find any touchscreen Windows devices in their sea of laptops they had on display. I had to ask a salesman, and he had to point out to me the one they had on display.
I imagine that once touchscreen devices and monitors become the standard, people will be more inclined to go with Windows 8, so I haven't written off its success yet.
Or, I guess the pessimistic flip-side to that is that the market has spoken, and there isn't a strong demand for such devices running Windows 8?
Why does my PC need a touch screen? I've never been using a desktop or laptop computer and thought "If only this had a touch screen, my task would be so much easier."
For that matter, same question with s/a touch screen/Windows 8/g. Seriously, I haven't seen any commercial that tells me what Windows 8 will actually do for me. Live tiles and "doodle passwords" are nifty, but I'm not going to drop several hundred dollars for these.
I'm still using a 5 year old laptop with XP on it. So take this in that context.
I think the idea isn't so much that every PC needs a touch screen, it is more that it is a good thing for the OS to be able to take advantage of one that is there. The marketing message certainly leans towards "You need a touchscreen", but I don't think that was driving the technical choices 2 or 3 years ago. If there is a touchscreen and the OS knows about it, it might as well be able to run apps designed for touchscreens.
(I find all the complaining about the missing start menu pretty irrelevant, hunt and click is a terrible interface compared to a searching launcher. But I guess they did a poor job of understanding who was going to end up using the new launcher.)
I've had a touch-screen laptop with Windows 8 for a couple of months now, and I wish all my PCs had touch screens. Not that I'd use it for every interaction, but sometimes it's just so much easier to swipe at the screen than to use the mouse or the keyboard.
I bought my Windows 8 machine with the assumption that, as a touch device, it would give me a true "Windows 8 Experience". I can summarise this experience with the word "atrocious".
This is a pity, because the device itself, an Asus S200E, is rather wonderful and extremely good value. I think Microsoft needed to do a lot more testing, perhaps UAT, Windows 8 feels like a pre-alpha product in many places. I'm getting to the point where I'm going to have to write some blog posts or something because it is quite unbelievably bad in certain areas. I actually quite like it, but it could be that I'm just feeling very sorry for it. You have to feel a certain amount of pity for a thing that regularly claims to be importing 342 of 200 pictures, or has an app that encourages me to launch the actual app I'm running in order to fix a problem with the app I'm running. I could go on…
Windows 8 is and I supposed designed for tablets but not specifically for tablets which is what I think is wrong, I'm sure everyone thinks that.
I'm curious to see how many people got tablets over the holidays and if Windows 8 use increases some.
Windows 8 is so different than the previous versions of Windows it's quite obvious people are out of their comfort zone. But I think it's good to see some attempts at change and this change is not "just because" it's a valid attempt at spurring sales because of the tablet craze.
I like Windows 8 but I am comfortable with computer and even I find it quite a leap there's no way my elderly relatives could figure it out, they have trouble even with Windows 7/Vista/XP.
I find it quite a leap there's no way my elderly relatives could figure it out, they have trouble even with Windows 7/Vista/XP.
Metro is actually pretty simple on a touch device. I've seen iOS users figuring out the interface in no time. I think Microsoft's real problem is that for most people tablets are a different device category than laptops or desktops, so the choice for Windows is not automatic. Evenmore, most people in the market probably played with friends' or family's iPads and are more likely to choose an iPad, or perhaps an Android device if they have an Android phone.
Any relative of mine uses old hardware most of the time it's something I have given away, I doubt anyone has any hardware newer than 2008, most of it is ten years old.
Only recently my Aunt went from dial-up AOL to fiber Internet but her CRT monitor is so fuzzy I can barely read it. She uses Word Perfect and barely uses the 20GB hard drive she has.
She's the most tech knowledgeable of my relatives too she worked in a government office for decades but even Win 7 would be confusing.
But she said may soon splurge and buy a new PC but by that time it will all be Win8 so I am dreading that day, I read you can downgrade Win8 to be like Win7 I may look into that more.
I don't think that the problem is figuring out Windows 8 (something that anyone could do given enough time), but, rather, the real problem is unwillingness to buy. Having heard from friends and the media that Windows 8 is radically different, any remaining interest is dissipated on sight of screenshots or a demo computer in-store.
That said, my parents, when actually confronted with it, were fine; they weren't huge fans, but using the new interface wasn't a problem after they adjusted.
My parents could use their new Win8 computer quite well. But then, after seeing lots of tutorials, trying things for a long time and exploring all the new interface, they asked "Can't you really put a start menu on that thing?"
It's not the end of the world. But it's not a good interface either.
A lot of organizations completed upgrading to win 7 (mostly from XP but some from Vista) two or three years ago. From a business perspective, i don't see why they would want to upgrade now given that win 7 does what they want and is pretty stable/efficient. This also applies to regular people who get their job done on win 7 and don't want to go through the hassle of upgrading. You could argue, that win 8 is not sexy enough that it would push people to upgrade, but I would say it's a timing issue combined with how win 7 is still going solid, so I won't necessary blame Windows 8 for the low numbers.
Win8 main problem is there's no killer must have app(s) that decimates similar apps on other platforms. The Metro Mail app is almost a complete failure, and the store is not user friendly for discovery of apps. If they can't get their first tier apps to show what Win8 Metro can do, then what hope do third party apps have?
Win8 actually does have some great functionality in WinRT and the new application security model which has been sorely needed.
The problem is that these are all tied to the Metro interface. Once Microsoft supports these in the classic desktop and stops pushing users into Metro then it'll be a decent OS again.
The latest trick is to use Task Scheduler to run Explorer.exe upon Login. This bypasses the Metro screen as the starting point, going straight to the Desktop.
Oddly (to me anyway) my youngest kids love Windows 8. I'm not sure if it's because they didn't have as much "invested" in the old desktop experience, they just like the dancing colors, or if there is some generational thing I don't quite grok.
The solution is to unplug the mouse, and then the keyboard shows up. The level of "broken" this represents in not thoroughly thinking through the change in their UI probably explains the level of resistance to the product. I still run it on all my machines because most of what I do I can do inside the Desktop pane (even on my Win 8 tablet). I can only imagine how painful life would be to an RT user...