Will Windows 7 Be The New XP?

ViperGrendal said:
I see windows 8 as running alongside windows 7 and I hope MS supports it as such. Then you'll truly be able to do everything you can on your desktop on your phone or tablet aside from limitations of the hardware itself.
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Not exactly sure what you mean here, Metro notwithstanding Windows 8 is 100% backwards compatible with Windows 7. You don't need Windows 7 to do what you're saying. Indeed with a Windows 8 hybrid/convertible one device can be a laptop, tablet and desktop.
 
AlienKing said:
Microsoft alternates between good operating systems and bad ones.

3.11 good
95 bad
98 good
ME bad
XP good
Vista bad
7 good
8 bad

Not sure why this is a surprise to anyone.
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swap 95, 98, vista and 8 and you have a corrected list.

95 ran fine for me. 98 blue screened every other day if you sneezed. no issues with Vista, no issues with 8.
 
Saist said:
I think the larger question is whether or not Windows 8 will be a Vista release that can be salvaged by later updates... or a WinME release that kills a product line.

Unfortunately for Microsoft the stakes this go-around are significantly higher than they were in previous releases.

Looking at Microsoft's financial records, Microsoft is in the position of desperately needing a massive sales success. Microsoft's traditional profitable divisions have been the Operating System licensing Division and the Office software licensing Division. Outside of that no other division has been profitable, and yes, that includes the Home and Entertainment division with Xbox. Do keep in mind that Microsoft wrote off several billion dollars as non-recoverable, and it is only those write-offs that allow Microsoft to declare Home and Entertainment to be profitable... when the division has still yet to turn a real profit against the real number of expenses.

Microsoft at least had the advantage during the Windows ME years that Win98 was a strong product and Win2000 was a solid enough desktop replacement to hold over users till the Win2k remix of WinXp. This go around Microsoft doesn't have that advantage. There is no other operating system in Microsoft's background that can be remixed into a usable product, a situation that has arisen from Microsoft's insistence on merging all of it's products into a single kernel with a single user-interface.

Microsoft also had the advantage during the Windows ME years that there were no real competitors on the market. Desktop Linux had yet to have it's Mepis Linux, and Apple was still pushing systems built on PowerPC.

This go around Microsoft has several active and visible competitors. Consumers have been broken from the reliance on Microsoft products for computing with commercial devices leveraging Apple's IOS/Mach_BSD and Android/Linux. Apple makes steady sales of their general-usage OSX products. Desktop usage of GNU/Linux distributions has exploded, and Canonical and Linux Mint are pushing retail pre-load deals. Sales of Android/Linux and Chromium/Linux devices are also expected to grow, keeping in mind that electronics juggernaut Sony has already announced ChromeBooks and ChromeBox products for later this year, and will likely be leveraging a Chromium Linux for the Playstation 4. If that wasn't bad enough one of the launch partners Microsoft was counting on for Windows 8, Samsung, turned around and upped their stake in the Linux foundation a day after the Windows 8 product launch was detailed in order to calm down investors convinced Samsung had lost it's mind.

To try and put a fine cap on the point here: the computing market itself has fundamentally changed. Consumers are not buying Windows 7 systems in droves, not because Windows 7 isn't a good operating system, but because consumers no longer NEED a Microsoft product to compute with. Microsoft's casual user market, the market that adopted WinXp in such large numbers, no longer needs to look at Microsoft products to accomplish their casual tasks.

Given how atrocious Windows 8 is a product alone, neverminding other factors like SecureBoot that only the technology literate care about, Microsoft may be very well faced with a product launch that could effectively kill the company. Microsoft needs an operating system that can be salvaged and turned into something that users actually want.

From what I've seen, Microsoft's love affair with the Gnome3 designers means we will not be seeing such an operating system.
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Most of the market is in the enterprise, NOT consumer usage.
 
heatlesssun said:
Not exactly sure what you mean here, Metro notwithstanding Windows 8 is 100% backwards compatible with Windows 7. You don't need Windows 7 to do what you're saying. Indeed with a Windows 8 hybrid/convertible one device can be a laptop, tablet and desktop.
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he is just an idiot like most of the others.
 
Exavior said:
swap 95, 98, vista and 8 and you have a corrected list.

95 ran fine for me. 98 blue screened every other day if you sneezed. no issues with Vista, no issues with 8.
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Whatever people want to say about the Windows 8 UI, the test versions of Windows 8 have been the most stable and reliable I've ever. It's definitely faster than Windows 7 on the same hardware that I've tried. The technical quality of Windows 8 should be superior to Windows 7 in that it will be at least as stable but a bit faster with better battery life on the same hardware.
 
I won't agree with the statement that Windows 7 is the new XP until I actually see a business PC running Windows 7. I have worked in many government offices at different levels and it is always XP, every time.
 
Exavior said:
swap 95, 98, vista and 8 and you have a corrected list.

95 ran fine for me. 98 blue screened every other day if you sneezed. no issues with Vista, no issues with 8.
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Honestly, Windows 98 didn't really get decent until it had a couple of updates - esp. the SE edition. Win98 wasn't bad, but it wasn't really worse than 95. And better in some ways.

Vista was fine after companies started writing drivers for it - windows 7 would have sucked almost as bad if it hadn't been for all of the driver/software work done for Vista.

And folks throwing Windows 2000 in the mix forget that it wasn't intended as a consumer OS - it was technically part of the Windows NT fork - server OS. It was intended only as a server OS and a business/power user OS.
 
I would be willing to migrate to Windows 8, gradually, on a multi boot setup, but I would have to keep my Windows 7, as I kept my Windows XP.

What is more important to me are the applications that I tend to run, games etc. If Windows 8 does the job better, then I would probably end up staying on it more, over time.

Anyway, that is my position. So there!:p
 
I think Microsoft might have to accept the fact that operating systems have about a 10-15 year life span, and trying to make people upgrade every 5 years is simply not going to work. I really don't see why they try. They make just as much money by selling the same OS for 15 years as they do producing a new one every 5 years. It's really just stupid on their part, and it's only creating bad will towards their products. Humans have limits, and we're running up against these limits.

People don't want to learn an entirely new user interface every 5 years -- they've simply got better or more pressing things to do with their time.
 
I also used Win NT 3.5, 3.51, and the win95 facelift version, winNT 4.0, lol.

3.51 was solid. Until server2003, not as solid. :)

I have a drive set with server 2003 with xp drivers for directx and gaming in general; it rocks better than xp32, but not quite as good as xp64, even with the 64 bit version. (which is even more finicky about hardware/drivers.)

With win7 x64, it will be a long time before I change os's. I still have an unused copy of XP 32 sp3. :) For a laptop, it's hard to beat.
 
cheese700_1238272c.jpg


This should go well with all the whining.
 
chinesepiratefood said:
Windows XP was not that great, jesus christ people have some rose colored glasses.
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This.

Most folks considered the Fischer-Price OS a joke until after Service Pack 1 came out...then it finally become usable. Back then people did not want to give up their Win2K.
 
Windows 8 looks like ass and that large ass tablet crap on my desktop will never happen.

I am going to keep buying windows 7
 
Every OS MS has come out with was better than the one before (including ME and VISTA). 8 is better than 7, minus Metro.
 
DrBorg said:
With win7 x64, it will be a long time before I change os's. I still have an unused copy of XP 32 sp3. :) For a laptop, it's hard to beat.
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I think laptops will be devices that many will find Windows 8 desirable. People may not upgrade current machines to Windows 8 but I don't see too many purchasers of new laptops going back to Windows 7 as the battery life difference might be too big, especially if one can spend a significant amount of time in Metro apps. I've not done any real formal testing on Windows 8 battery life since it's not a finished product but it does seem to do a lot better on battery on my x220t especially if I use the IE Metro browser which works fine for me most of the time until I need a plug in.

Throw in better track pad support, touch screens, Windows 7 isn't as compelling as it would be on older laptops.
 
Windows 7 WILL be my Windows XP. I was one of those select few that willingly threw themselves into Windows Vista (wasn't so bad after SP1) and just by the looks alone I'm not going for Windows 8 ever. Helps I've played around with Windows 8 in a VM to solidify my opinion that it just doesn't work well for a regular PC user. I'm now to a point of seething hatred at Microsoft's Good OS/Bad OS cycle that I'm not even going to try offering Tech Support to anyone on-line/offline who has Windows 8 installed. It'll be like Windows ME all over for me again.

Oh you got a problem? Go to your Start Menu>Control Panel........wait wait wait what start menu? All I see is little icons everywhere and super secret keyboard shortcuts and hidden menu's within each start page. Sorry, can't help you. Tech Support is going to be a b*tch and I feel sorry for those people the most.
 
Skripka said:
This.

Most folks considered the Fischer-Price OS a joke until after Service Pack 1 came out...then it finally become usable. Back then people did not want to give up their Win2K.
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It's interesting, often Windows OS'es are much better remembered in years after release than how they were regarded at launch. Many people were very luke warm about Windows 7. A competent OS, but what Vista should have been.
 
heatlesssun said:
It's interesting, often Windows OS'es are much better remembered in years after release than how they were regarded at launch. Many people were very luke warm about Windows 7. A competent OS, but what Vista should have been.
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W7 was welcomed for the most part...Especially considering how little has changed in it since release, as the "SP1" was only a bug-fix compilation.
 
Bootleg Usher said:
I won't agree with the statement that Windows 7 is the new XP until I actually see a business PC running Windows 7. I have worked in many government offices at different levels and it is always XP, every time.
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WTF are you working? All of the places I do work at (including Govt) have upgraded to 7 within the past two years.

As for all the bitching about Windows 8, I just don't get it. I've been using it full time on my desktop and it doesn't negatively affect my productivity one bit. WTF is with all the love for the start menu anyways? The only useful thing on the start menu is the search box. I do agree businesses are not likely to switch to 8 though, but it has nothing to do with the UI. They just spent a ton of money switching to 7 and retiring XP, they'll wait at least another 5 years until they upgrade again.
 
Liger88 said:
Oh you got a problem? Go to your Start Menu>Control Panel........wait wait wait what start menu? All I see is little icons everywhere and super secret keyboard shortcuts and hidden menu's within each start page. Sorry, can't help you. Tech Support is going to be a b*tch and I feel sorry for those people the most.
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Point mouse in left corner until Start icon pops up, right click, select Control Panel. Do everything else from that point as in Windows 7.
 
heatlesssun said:
Point mouse in left corner until Start icon pops up, right click, select Control Panel. Do everything else from that point as in Windows 7.
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and that's just it. People understood the Start Menu's reason for existing for over 15 years, why change it? I don't really want to re-hash the Start Menu madness, but from a newbies perspective how many will figure that out? There is a sliver of space similar to the right hand corner in Windows 7 for Show/Hide desktop, that little space nobody uses anymore and isn't very clear. It's just there and often times people discover it by accidentally moving there mouse over it while the icon pinned in the taskbar everyone understood.

I've watched some of the YouTube videos of experienced users loading up Windows 8 for some of there household members who aren't experts and it's painful to watch. I can sympathize with why they find it difficult and unintuitive especially if they go to the dreaded Desktop now by hitting the Start Key which now swipes you back-and-forth.

I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I'm curious as to the majority of users who aren't very computer literate react, they matter more than Power Users these days apparently.
 
Skripka said:
W7 was welcomed for the most part...Especially considering how little has changed in it since release, as the "SP1" was only a bug-fix compilation.
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Not saying it wasn't welcomed, but overall just a "meh" release from the average consumer and IT media standpoint, what Vista should have been all along. Microsoft announced last week that it's sold 600 million Windows 7 licenses, "meh", the iPad is revolutionary and has sold 1/6 the number in about the same amount of time.

Perhaps the biggest thing about Windows 8 is that it shakes things up, creates controversy and will for years to come. If not excitement, Windows 8 is drawing a lot of attention and comments, and while mostly negative, that might be better than "meh", another Windows release, yawn, what 7 should have been all along.

At least no one is calling Windows 8 what Windows 7 should have been all along.
 
Liger88 said:
and that's just it. People understood the Start Menu's reason for existing for over 15 years, why change it?
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While I know a lot of people see the Start Menu, I really wonder if it means one-thousandth the thing that experienced and power users think it means to average people. And the reason why it's changing is simple, as many my think the Start Screen is for desktops and keyboards and mice, the Start Menu is 100000x times worse for a touch screen.

Some of you are getting the memo. Windows 8 devices are going to be HEAVILY entwined with touch. If not touch screens then much better track pads. The notion that Windows 8 is just going to be plopped on the same hardware as Windows 7 overall isn't going to be the case overall.
 
heatlesssun said:
Not saying it wasn't welcomed, but overall just a "meh" release from the average consumer and IT media standpoint, what Vista should have been all along. Microsoft announced last week that it's sold 600 million Windows 7 licenses, "meh", the iPad is revolutionary and has sold 1/6 the number in about the same amount of time.

Perhaps the biggest thing about Windows 8 is that it shakes things up, creates controversy and will for years to come. If not excitement, Windows 8 is drawing a lot of attention and comments, and while mostly negative, that might be better than "meh", another Windows release, yawn, what 7 should have been all along.

At least no one is calling Windows 8 what Windows 7 should have been all along.
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If you want to call the iPad revolutionary, then by all means. There were lots of tablets before it that looked and functioned darn similar from a hardware perspective. The only thing really different about the iPad and what came before is the software ecosystem for it...which is the primary reason tablets never took off, there was so little software that existed for it.

Windows is the dominant OS player. Being "revolutionary" and getting negative attention for it I wouldn't call "better" either for the consumer or Microsoft. Hiding old stand-by features isn't how you keep your flock of users.
 
heatlesssun said:
Not saying it wasn't welcomed, but overall just a "meh" release from the average consumer and IT media standpoint, what Vista should have been all along. Microsoft announced last week that it's sold 600 million Windows 7 licenses, "meh", the iPad is revolutionary and has sold 1/6 the number in about the same amount of time.

Perhaps the biggest thing about Windows 8 is that it shakes things up, creates controversy and will for years to come. If not excitement, Windows 8 is drawing a lot of attention and comments, and while mostly negative, that might be better than "meh", another Windows release, yawn, what 7 should have been all along.

At least no one is calling Windows 8 what Windows 7 should have been all along.
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The iPad is also useless to most people and costs $600+ while Windows costs what, $300 for the most expensive one?
 
I'm getting really sick of the old, close minded people on this site.

This goes to [H] staff too - your iPad support is horrid and I'm guessing your Metro browser support will be just as bad.

Get with the program people!
 
Terminus said:
I'm getting really sick of the old, close minded people on this site.

This goes to [H] staff too - your iPad support is horrid and I'm guessing your Metro browser support will be just as bad.

Get with the program people!
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Eh? My Android phone works perfectly fine with this website..same thing with my 3GS....I even tried it on my parents iPad 2 and it was fine.
 
Skripka said:
If you want to call the iPad revolutionary, then by all means. There were lots of tablets before it that looked and functioned darn similar from a hardware perspective. The only thing really different about the iPad and what came before is the software ecosystem for it...which is the primary reason tablets never took off, there was so little software that existed for it.

Windows is the dominant OS player. Being "revolutionary" and getting negative attention for it I wouldn't call "better" either for the consumer or Microsoft. Hiding old stand-by features isn't how you keep your flock of users.
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xIronCrossx said:
The iPad is also useless to most people and costs $600+ while Windows costs what, $300 for the most expensive one?
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What ever it is or isn't, the iPad is what people are talking about and what people are willing to spend a good deal of money on. Windows 7, "meh", just Windows 95 with a slightly different shell.

All I am saying is that Microsoft had to do SOMETHING in Windows to make people talk about it, hell even if the conversation about it is negative that's better than no one even thinking about it.

If Windows 8 were the OS that many of you probably want, people would look at, say, "meh" just another desktop OS, big deal, Microsoft should have had all of this in Windows 7. Windows 7 is all I need if I even need a PC anymore. It's the post-PC era after all.

Again, I'm just talking about the perception of things, not necessarily the reality.
 
Maybe this was said, but the question should be

"Will Windows 8 Be The New Vista?"
 
Terminus said:
I'm getting really sick of the old, close minded people on this site.

This goes to [H] staff too - your iPad support is horrid and I'm guessing your Metro browser support will be just as bad.

Get with the program people!
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I'm using the Metro browser right now, it works perfectly with [H] from what I've seen and has pretty much from day one of the Developer Preview.
 
another win8 thread, great. :rolleyes:

was loving these types of threads early on tho the discussion has gotten a little stale. there is a clear polarisation on this topic, disproportionally so. the consensus, at least here, is window 8 isn't viewed favourably. having said that, seems many haven't even tried it. i'd recommend at least DL'ing the CP and having a look. there are some nice features there.

personally i hate 'metro' & the 'hot points' but then again i'm primarily a desktop user so the new UI does nothing for me. give me a decent spec'ed phone with win8 and i might bite. tablets are a toy in my mind tho hybrid ulra-thin/tablet might make more sense.

a lot of the hate would evaporate in my mind if the UI is fully customisable (disable metro, hot points or just cobble together your own UI). until we're closer to a decent RC or RTM, i'm hoping MS has done a bit of listening. not banking on it tho.

as the thread title (& linked article) suggests, yeah no shit. thanks Deanna Troi, for pointing out the obvious.
 
The UI is scary but I say we should wait for the benches. If there's a performance increase then I'll upgrade and figure out the UI.
 
jpm100 said:
Maybe this was said, but the question should be

"Will Windows 8 Be The New Vista?"
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Well 8 has already been declared the new Vista by many a pundit and no doubt that tag line will remain. But a 8's success will be tied to touch hardware. If people by Windows 8 touch devices and start using it and like it, and even may 8 haters have said they think Windows 8 on touch devices should be pretty good, I think 8 could do better than many expect. Once you start using touch on a Windows 8 device and like it, you'd never use Windows 7 on that device, it would be pointless.
 
I think Microsoft is going to turn this around and say that Windows 8 wasn't meant for desktops, and that's where Windows 7 comes in.
 
heatlesssun said:
What ever it is or isn't, the iPad is what people are talking about and what people are willing to spend a good deal of money on. Windows 7, "meh", just Windows 95 with a slightly different shell.

All I am saying is that Microsoft had to do SOMETHING in Windows to make people talk about it, hell even if the conversation about it is negative that's better than no one even thinking about it.

If Windows 8 were the OS that many of you probably want, people would look at, say, "meh" just another desktop OS, big deal, Microsoft should have had all of this in Windows 7. Windows 7 is all I need if I even need a PC anymore. It's the post-PC era after all.

Again, I'm just talking about the perception of things, not necessarily the reality.
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"Post-PC Era" indeed. Most all real work is still done on desktop machines or laptops be they Win or OSX. The gripe with Win8 is that they're gimping the OS UI on desktops. Hell, you don't see Apple gimping its Macbooks/iMacs/MacPros by forcing everyone to use iOS on them. Tablets are still play toys and internet terminals for the most part. They are more fun to use in terms of user experience, but real work needs a "real computer".

An OS is just a tool to get at other programs. Nothing more and nothing less. If the OS gets in the users' way by hiding features, it is a poor tool.

No one is talking about OSX, and people aren't talking about iOS in and of itself either really...they're talking about the user experience of OS and device together....something Microsoft has never worried about. Sooner or later Microsoft needs to realize that users hate having to relearn how to do the same damn tasks with every iteration of Windows.
 
PensFault said:
Or Windows ME 3.0
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I just can't take anyone seriously who would dare compare it to Windows ME. You obviously didn't use ME, because it never even worked. After 2 months the kernel would randomly become corrupted and the OS install would be unusable.
 
aphasia said:
a lot of the hate would evaporate in my mind if the UI is fully customisable (disable metro, hot points or just cobble together your own UI). until we're closer to a decent RC or RTM, i'm hoping MS has done a bit of listening. not banking on it tho.
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This is a big point with a lot of folks that don't like Metro, but I don't think they've really though it through. It sounds all well and good, classic menu for keyboards and mice only and Metro for touch devices until keyboard and mice people look at a touch device and then say, "where's all of the new stuff?" and Metro developers with no confidence that their Metro app that works just fine with keyboards and mice isn't even seen by people running devices with keyboards and mice.

Maybe Windows 8 won't work like it is and Microsoft will have to back off, but then I'd say just trash the whole thing and just stick with the ancient keyboard and mouse only and tablet only paradigm. The real beauty of this OS once you use it on certain hardware is that it works with everything and all common input methods by simply running the appropriate programs in the appropriate situations. There's no need for "desktop" or "tablet" mode, it's all there no matter what device you're using, you simply chose the way you want to use the device and use it that way. It's beyond simple, but you have to let go of two decades of a UI and the notion that one device can't do it all. And you have to know when this app will work well and where and where this won't work well.
 
Ashbringer said:
I think Microsoft is going to turn this around and say that Windows 8 wasn't meant for desktops, and that's where Windows 7 comes in.
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Well, other than the fact that pretty much every desktop app I've tried works just like it always has, yes, Windows 8 isn't for desktops.
 
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