Windows 8 dead on arrival.

[Tedd]

Yay.

Seriously though, it's starting to get old. Sure, if I don't like it, don't look. But first, a little advice on making a point: once you've made your point, shut up. If you've done it successfully, you don't need to say more. If you continue like a raving lunatic, not only is no-one going to take notice, they will oppose your view on the principle that it's held by a madman and therefore clearly nonsense.

Now for a dose of reality. Most technical users hate it - initially because they hate change, regardless of whether it's good change or bad change. We like things a certain way, we've invested effort in working with them that way, and it's trouble to change. As for non-technical users (the majority of the consumer public), they like shiny. That's not to say they'll be queuing outside stores to get their hands on the amazing windows 8 "now with even more shininess," but when it comes to replacing their old PC, they'll take whatever it comes with. And they will put up with all of the awkwardness and design flaws, because that's what they've always done - rebooting every time you change a setting, random blue screens and error messages, freezing for no reason, progressively getting slower with a build up of crud... But it's new, so it must be better.

Obviously the start screen was designed with tablets in mind, and they decided to push a more uniform interface across all devices. Was that a good decision? Maybe not. Will it bring about the end of windows domination and the downfall of microsoft? Probably not.

[Bill Cravener]

Yay.

Seriously though, it's starting to get old.

Ok!

There's so much wrong with Windows 8 usability that a brief column like this can't even begin to address it in detail, so I'll just say that I think Microsoft's ham-handed attempt to force tablet and especially PC users to work within the limited screen space available on smartphone displays is destined to fail.

Windows 8 will be another disaster for Microsoft

Given the huge user interface changes that Microsoft has forced onto users in Windows 8, I'd expected that the Redmond giant would have tried to ease the pain with a comprehensive tutorial. I was wrong.

The Windows 8 'tutorial' is a joke


__________________________________________________

Tomato.

[Gunther]

The Windows 8 'tutorial' is a joke

Good article, Bill. Thank you. 

[Bill Cravener]

Hi Gunther,

I think Microsoft has finally lost their minds with the mess called Windows 8. Hell they don’t even really know what to call their new OS since they lost the rights to use the name Metro. Ballmer's a damn fool!

[Bill Cravener]

Could Microsoft be trying to take down negative Windows 8 stories?

Microsoft censors site criticizing Windows 8 tile UI

Thanks for the DMCA takedown order, Microsoft!

[Bill Cravener]

In the last few days, a multitude of online publications have been handed DMCA takedown notices for seemingly innocuous posts, triggering speculation that Microsoft is trying to censor negative comments prior to Windows 8's official launch.

Microsoft's DMCA takedown blitz smells of Windows 8 censorship

[sinsi]

I would think more along the lines of this

I have a sneaking suspicion that this whole situation was brought on by some sort of third-party service or bot

Just ask youtube about automated takedowns.
I really can't see MS stopping talk of win8, it's all over the web.

Anyway, I've been using the latest win8 from Vortex's link (even though I'm not a registered dev or even an MSDN subscriber).
Just as before, stick to the desktop (forget apps) and all is OK. My games work, my attempts at asm still work. Faster than win7 on my hardware.
Bring it on!

[Gunther]

Hi sinsi,

Anyway, I've been using the latest win8 from Vortex's link (even though I'm not a registered dev or even an MSDN subscriber).
Just as before, stick to the desktop (forget apps) and all is OK. My games work, my attempts at asm still work. Faster than win7 on my hardware.
Bring it on!

yes, we'll see what it'll bring to us. But don't forget: Not all what glitters is gold.

Gunther

[Bill Cravener]

It won’t work because you can’t takeover mobile by hobbling the desktop. By adopting a common code base for both desktops and mobile all Microsoft is doing is compromising both.  This is not good but I’m fairly confident it will also be shortly reversed.

Windows 8 suffers from the Microsoft Bob effect

[Gunther]

Hi Bill,

It won’t work because you can’t takeover mobile by hobbling the desktop. By adopting a common code base for both desktops and mobile all Microsoft is doing is compromising both.  This is not good but I’m fairly confident it will also be shortly reversed.

Windows 8 suffers from the Microsoft Bob effect

interesting article.

Microsoft is simply trying to change too many things at once.

It seems to me that this is true.

Gunther

[Bill Cravener]

Two and a half decades is a long time to lead any segment of the enterprise technology business. Is the clock running out for Microsoft?

The Windows 8 Doomsday Scenario

[CodeDog]

An operating system is supposed to make the computer work, bind it together. Microsoft go far beyond that, they put in this crappy metro "snacky" looking thing and consume system resources to the greatest of their abilities.

Operating systems should always strive to use less system resources, but microsoft keeps pushing the consumption as hardware innovation push forward. It's like a parasite. OS should go backwards, consume less resources, hardware innovation should go forwards (offer more resources).

Even I could create a better ui than the metro, and in just a week I would do it better myself. Metro have got to be an idea of Frank, the average guy at microsoft. "Wrap up some beauty, to hell with the technical innovation, just put up a few gradients and we got ourself a new user interface, VOILA, it's the work of a genius. You can see the gradient all the way from top to bottom and right in the middle of it a square big button that you can click, this is microsoft's innovation in 2012, and its so damn advanced that we are going to call it METRO....., LOOK, we got ourself a gradient menu here with big square buttons in the middle of it, this is the fucking future people"

Operating systems are becoming more like movies.  They seem to want less things appear on screen at any given time. Like some sort of a book.

Btw, every second release of windows always fails, it has been like that for decades, it would be an anomaly if windows 8 didn't also fail.

[Bill Cravener]

I'm no Windows 8 fan, but I thought Windows 8 tablets had a shot of making it. But, $600 for an ARM tablet? $800 for an Atom-powered tablet!? If the prices we're seeing are accurate, these are dead tablets walking.

Windows 8 Tablets: Born to fail

[anta40]

I'm no Windows 8 fan, but I thought Windows 8 tablets had a shot of making it. But, $600 for an ARM tablet? $800 for an Atom-powered tablet!? If the prices we're seeing are accurate, these are dead tablets walking.

Windows 8 Tablets: Born to fail

And the core-i powered tablet could cost you $1000
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Microsoft-Surface-Price-Release-Specs-Windows-8-Tablet,16110.html

Ouch...

[Vozzie]

I will reply what a Microsoft Evangelist told me a couple of weeks ago when we were complaining about the lost capabilities of Phone compared to Windows Mobile,...

"You can always use android."

That's the arrogance that developers have to deal with when using windows... Windows 8 is not worse then Windows Phone when comparing to earlier versions, but it's obvious that MS pushes users to use the new gui... more is, microsoft doesn't care that there's a whole business world using ms products who are used with gui's that evolved thru the last 20+ years. Now you have to cope with it, or go for another OS,...

Times changed and the most users AREN'T business users anymore... So they want a share of this market,...

The biggest W8 flaws in my point of view are that if you buy a desktop you have to deal with (or tweak) the new gui style that's not mouse and keyboard friendly,... Add to it that the ms person also told us that both environments(old desktop, new metro) are like 2 seperate operatings systems who can not communicate with eachother! (i don't know to what level this is true)...

conclussion, when you have a monopoly, you can be arrogant (only that arrogance didn't show in the ms phone marketshare,... )

Windows Phone: no access to the file system, no native code, no good bluetooth API, your application goes into "zombie" state when not having focus, no SD card, no hardware key API(and limitations),...

So you buy the hotest new phone but when you take a picture you can't send it to a 8 year old Windows Mobile that supports bluetooth, LOL,...

update: http://distrowatch.com/
update: I always remark when somebody points to my screen it isn't a touch screen,... Certainly after lunch,...