Less than 2 months til Windows 8.1 release day

[heatlesssun]

I can't wait for this to come out.

This. And a nice Bay Trail keyboard docking hybrid at a good price.

 

[ManofGod]

Edit: What's the point in arguing, Microsoft Operating Systems work fine here with me and have for a long time. (Changed this post to reflect my more proper opinion.) My favorite Operating Systems were the Amiga 2.04 and OS/2 Warp 3 and they both were very much different. (The difference was also due in large part to having a different underlying hardware setup.) I am definitely looking forward to what is coming.

 

[heatlesssun]

Says the Anti-Microsoft fanboy of the year. The fact that is can be done is all that matters.

I can understand wanting stuff in the box, particularly stuff that's been in the box for 18 years. But the true power of Windows has always been in it's great 3rd party support. I'm considered as much of a Microsoft fanboy as anyone and I've never been all that compelled by the Windows desktop shell UI. It get's the job done but there's nothing really all that amazing about it. I guess that's one reason why I don't have problems with no Start Menu, it's just an app launcher made up of static icons and links with a local inline search. The search was probably the thing I missed the most but 8.1 does mostly bring that back.

 

[TType85]

DPI scaling has been garbage in Windows since its debut. As an example, we have major problems at the hospital I work at related to DPI scaling and apparent UI element sizes. Namely, Nurse A comes along and thinks "the screen is too small" (translation: "The desktop resolution is too high for my taste.") Nurse A has seen or heard from Nurse B a method to "make everything bigger", which usually involves going in to the DPI settings and scaling to 125%, rather than doing something slightly more sensible, like reducing resolution to 1024x768. Yes, 1024x768 scaled to fill a 19'' display is still the universally preferred desktop configuration among all nursing unit staff, including the doctors…

Nurse C comes in during the next shift and needs to use the patient transfer application, only to find that because the screen is scaled to 125%, the text input fields for MM/DD/YYYY cannot be selected by the cursor; they have been crowded out by the scaling. The EMR application also looks terrible and suffers from the same text field issue. Nurse C goes to another computer until Nurse D comes along because this is the last remaining free computer on the unit. Noticing that the screen by now is some bizarre pastiche of pixellated applications, a ticket is called in to the helpdesk and is paged out at 2 AM.

It's maddening how little Microsoft has done to fix this even in 8.1. If Windows 9 or 8.2 or whatever is up next fixes this once and for all, by giving us a way to make UI elements on the screen larger at higher resolutions (eliminating the need for scaling down to 1024x768 or up to 125% DPI), I will instantly become the biggest advocate for its enterprise deployment on the Internet.

This is one of the biggest issues I have with Windows right now. The problem isn't as much the core OS as us developers not even taking High-DPI in to consideration.

Before, when you had to pack a ton of text boxes and labels in to a win32 LOB data-entry app you pretty much make a static size form and run with it. Now a user sets their DPI higher than you did and complains it's broken. Now you really need to make your UI dpi aware.

I had a user complaining that they didn't have a certain field on their screen which I assumed was a user permission issue as it is only available to certain users. It ended up being that she set her monitor to 1024x768 and it was off the bottom of the screen and the app didn't scale at all or have a scroll bar to get to it.

 

[Wrench00]

I can understand wanting stuff in the box, particularly stuff that's been in the box for 18 years. But the true power of Windows has always been in it's great 3rd party support. I'm considered as much of a Microsoft fanboy as anyone and I've never been all that compelled by the Windows desktop shell UI. It get's the job done but there's nothing really all that amazing about it. I guess that's one reason why I don't have problems with no Start Menu, it's just an app launcher made up of static icons and links with a local inline search. The search was probably the thing I missed the most but 8.1 does mostly bring that back.

Corporations/Business can't just install Third party software, It costs money, deployment problems. Eventually 8 is gone get shoved down my throat I will have no choice but to deal with this sub par product.

 

[heatlesssun]

Corporations/Business can't just install Third party software, It costs money, deployment problems. Eventually 8 is gone get shoved down my throat I will have no choice but to deal with this sub par product.

Strong 3rd party hardware/software support is primary reason that corporations and businesses use Windows in such large numbers.

 

[Terpfen]

Uh, unless you still use ancient CRT screens there, scaling down is pretty horrible as a solution.

We're generally using Dell 17'' or 19'' LCDs depending on the area. And yes, scaling down is an awful solution. However, this is what our users do, because they want larger interface elements. This is a real problem that Windows does not address correctly.

Apps corrupting from DPI changes are a software design problem also, not only OS problem.

Agreed. But the OS ultimately controls scaling and the apps have to work within the framework the OS allows. Microsoft should take the first step of improving the framework.

There's an obvious arrow pointing down, how that's confusing or not discoverable I don't know. And I don't think moving in two dimensions throws too many loops in this case.

It isn't obvious, though; the arrow is not present when first opening the Start Screen. It appears several seconds after moving the cursor, and it appears in an area where the user is not looking. You can test this on 8.1 right now by opening the Start Screen via the Windows key on the keyboard, which is Microsoft's preferred method for accessing the Start Screen. Hit the key and then look for the arrow; it's not there. At this point, most people will start looking at the tiles to find what they want, perhaps moving the cursor from tile to tile as a guide. They may or may not find what they want. They certainly will not catch the arrow fading in the lower left corner. Their attention is elsewhere.

The app listing is very nice to have, but it just takes too long to drill down to it. Contrast with Launchpad on OS X; click the Launchpad icon in the Dock (which is available by default, right next to the Finder icon) and you instantly have a list of every app on the system, with high res icons distinguishing each app.

Microsoft can do better, IMO.

It's not obvious true but it's not particularly difficult and it is very consistent. Every modern app prints, shares its data with other apps if it has the capability and controls its option the same way. That replaces a lot of chrome that could be here or there and the need to keep rediscovering the same things repeatedly.

It's not difficult once you know it's there. Again, my issue is intuitive implementation and whether a feature is easily discovered. Hot corners are by definition not easily discoverable. They require foreknowledge. To contrast, OS X supports hot corners, but the user must go into System Preferences and manually enable them. Additionally, the user can then define the action that occurs in each of the four hot corners.

My work laptop is a 15.6" 1920x1080 screen running 7 using 125% scaling at native resolution. Works great. Again, low resolutions are where the problems occur.

That's exactly the issue; this is an instance where users would prefer lower resolutions because the UI elements are bigger at lower resolutions. They can live with the pixelated graphics because text and images are now acceptably large for them. We can't give them high resolution monitors and then scale up DPI; DPI scaling breaks apps, and they complain about the small UI elements at high resolution, so we go back to square one.

We put out two 24'' 1080p displays for the ER doctor workstations. They called that night and demanded that "the picture should be bigger." Once we set the resolution to 1280x768 they were happy.

Menu fonts and sizes are controlled by Windows in most applications, Outlook is no exception.

One would think two Microsoft products should interact pretty smoothly, though...

Modern apps are desktop apps though, if you at the add-on Modern Mix that easily proves the point. Also if you take a desktop window that's always on top like the Task Manager it can be on top of an modern app while the modern app stays underneath. With Modern Mix modern apps behave as you described with App Nap, the will suspend when underneath other windows, desktop and modern.

They aren't desktop apps, at least they aren't presented that way. Metro presents the desktop as a Metro tile, not the Metro tiles as desktop apps. At least that's how I interpret the Metro metaphor. App Nap solely exists as an interaction between multiple desktop windows, not between different spaces; to work as you describe it, App Nap would work to suspend multiple Spaces in OS X, which it doesn't do.

The Modern UI is heavily sandboxed at this point, there's a lot more capability there than exposed currently.

Sandboxing doesn't mean no access, it means managed access. Microsoft can pretty easily write in the necessary hooks to allow apps to request certain functions.

 

[Wrench00]

Strong 3rd party hardware/software support is primary reason that corporations and businesses use Windows in such large numbers.

Good lord. You take a cake for something.. Something special.. You just DON'T FUCKING GET IT. Licensing costs money lots of cash strapped companies just can't justify licensing shit that was in OS previously.

Your idiotic line of REASONING/Logic didn't answer the point I made.

 

[heatlesssun]

There are free Start Menu replacements.

 

[heatlesssun]

It isn't obvious, though; the arrow is not present when first opening the Start Screen. It appears several seconds after moving the cursor, and it appears in an area where the user is not looking.

This arrow is so close to the Start Button/Hot Corner that I don't see how one could miss it unless they are having an issue with the Start Button/Hot Corner. Even if one is new to the Start Screen, if they go looking for a Start Button in the lower left corner they are going to see that arrow.

You can test this on 8.1 right now by opening the Start Screen via the Windows key on the keyboard, which is Microsoft's preferred method for accessing the Start Screen. Hit the key and then look for the arrow; it's not there. At this point, most people will start looking at the tiles to find what they want, perhaps moving the cursor from tile to tile as a guide. They may or may not find what they want. They certainly will not catch the arrow fading in the lower left corner. Their attention is elsewhere.

Yes, you are correct about the arrow not displaying when hitting the Windows key, but as soon as an arrow key is pressed it's going to display, that's something that doesn't make sense I agree. But again, it's in a place close to the Start Button, how can one not see it?

The app listing is very nice to have, but it just takes too long to drill down to it. Contrast with Launchpad on OS X; click the Launchpad icon in the Dock (which is available by default, right next to the Finder icon) and you instantly have a list of every app on the system, with high res icons distinguishing each app.

Microsoft can do better, IMO.

There is the option of setting the Apps Screen as the default screen. And it's one click away while on the Start Screen.

It's not difficult once you know it's there. Again, my issue is intuitive implementation and whether a feature is easily discovered. Hot corners are by definition not easily discoverable. They require foreknowledge. To contrast, OS X supports hot corners, but the user must go into System Preferences and manually enable them. Additionally, the user can then define the action that occurs in each of the four hot corners.

And I do agree with your point, I'm merely pointing out that the hot corners are far from the only thing in Windows that have no obvious chrome.

One would think two Microsoft products should interact pretty smoothly, though...

The standard UI chrome is handled by the OS, the apps settings within the app. If one were increasing the size of menu fonts in one application it would be reasonable that they would want that setting to apply system wide.

They aren't desktop apps, at least they aren't presented that way. Metro presents the desktop as a Metro tile, not the Metro tiles as desktop apps. At least that's how I interpret the Metro metaphor. App Nap solely exists as an interaction between multiple desktop windows, not between different spaces; to work as you describe it, App Nap would work to suspend multiple Spaces in OS X, which it doesn't do.

No they aren't presented that way but modern apps are COM applications like DX apps.

Sandboxing doesn't mean no access, it means managed access. Microsoft can pretty easily write in the necessary hooks to allow apps to request certain functions.

And sometimes managed means no. You wouldn't want a modern app ever to access to certain parts of the file system, direct access to all memory, run with admin privileges, etc.

 

[ManofGod]

It did take me a bit of time to get used to the new swipe motion to bring up the apps screen. On a mouse, it was no problem, I saw the arrow right away. On my tablet, the arrow was not there and I could not figure out at first what to do. (I thought there was a bug or something initially.) That does not make it unintuitive though, just that I had to make a change. (The swipe in 8.1 is better.)

 

[heatlesssun]

It did take me a bit of time to get used to the new swipe motion to bring up the apps screen. On a mouse, it was no problem, I saw the arrow right away. On my tablet, the arrow was not there and I could not figure out at first what to do. (I thought there was a bug or something initially.) That does not make it unintuitive though, just that I had to make a change. (The swipe in 8.1 is better.)

Actually that's a good point. There is no cue whatsoever for the Apps Screen on tablet. However this is consistent with Windows Phone when they took the side arrow away in Windows Phone 8.

 

[Terpfen]

This arrow is so close to the Start Button/Hot Corner that I don't see how one could miss it unless they are having an issue with the Start Button/Hot Corner. Even if one is new to the Start Screen, if they go looking for a Start Button in the lower left corner they are going to see that arrow.

Yes, you are correct about the arrow not displaying when hitting the Windows key, but as soon as an arrow key is pressed it's going to display, that's something that doesn't make sense I agree. But again, it's in a place close to the Start Button, how can one not see it?

One will miss the button because as soon as they bring up the Start Screen, the viewer's attention is no longer on the area where the start button was. Their attention is drawn upward and to the right, following the horizontal UI's layout.

There is the option of setting the Apps Screen as the default screen. And it's one click away while on the Start Screen.

But then one encounters a similar UI problem when trying to go from the app menu to the Start Screen.

The whole thing needs to be rethought or worked around. If tiles could function like folders then one could have an "All Apps" tile, problem solved.

And I do agree with your point, I'm merely pointing out that the hot corners are far from the only thing in Windows that have no obvious chrome.

Of course. My issue is just that they're the primary means of accessing high level functions. Hiding system files is OK; hiding the reboot function, not so much.

The standard UI chrome is handled by the OS, the apps settings within the app. If one were increasing the size of menu fonts in one application it would be reasonable that they would want that setting to apply system wide.

Disagreed. Why would wanting larger font sizes universally in Outlook translate into wanting larger font sizes universally in Paint?

No they aren't presented that way but modern apps are COM applications like DX apps.

That they are, which is another reason why App Nap wouldn't apply to Metro apps by definition.

And sometimes managed means no. You wouldn't want a modern app ever to access to certain parts of the file system, direct access to all memory, run with admin privileges, etc.

Yes, sometimes the system denies access. That's fine. But that shouldn't mean total lockdown, it just means supervised visitation.

 

[heatlesssun]

One will miss the button because as soon as they bring up the Start Screen, the viewer's attention is no longer on the area where the start button was. Their attention is drawn upward and to the right, following the horizontal UI's layout.

If one ever looks at the lower left of the screen, something that average Windows users have been doing for 18 years now, they are going see that arrow.

But then one encounters a similar UI problem when trying to go from the app menu to the Start Screen.

The whole thing needs to be rethought or worked around. If tiles could function like folders then one could have an "All Apps" tile, problem solved.

There could be a permanent text link saying "All Apps" or some other solution perhaps better than this one, I just don't think that the arrow is anywhere near as subtle or confusing as you're saying. I've seen several kids use my Windows 8 tablets and those arrows are a pretty common element in modern apps and they there meaning was readily obvious to all of them.

Of course. My issue is just that they're the primary means of accessing high level functions. Hiding system files is OK; hiding the reboot function, not so much.

Dragging and moving a window, Aero snap, pinning at web site to the task bar, drag select, drag and drop move or copy, etc. are all pretty high level functions that have no chrome and few cues. At some point or another most everyone had to learn something about the UI of any computing device they are using and not everything was obvious. Microsoft had to cues and tips for Start Menu back in 1995 when it was new. I don’t disagree with your point, I'm only saying there plenty even on the desktop that have no cues that are pretty important functions or at the very least extremely useful.

Disagreed. Why would wanting larger font sizes universally in Outlook translate into wanting larger font sizes universally in Paint?

An individual program could have its own settings for menus fonts and sizes but then that kind of defeats the purpose of a global setting. So then an app would have yet another setting that switch between its own settings and the global ones.

Yes, sometimes the system denies access. That's fine. But that shouldn't mean total lockdown, it just means supervised visitation.

But total lockdown is exactly the model in iOS and that does indeed seem to serve the purpose of lightweight, fast and dependable environment quite well. I understand that a lot of desktop users hate this type of thing and think it's incongruous with as desktop OS but its the kind of thing that allows people with no technical to just use a computer, download apps galore without getting into trouble.

 

[Terpfen]

If one ever looks at the lower left of the screen, something that average Windows users have been doing for 18 years now, they are going see that arrow.

Eventually, yes. Immediately, no.

There could be a permanent text link saying "All Apps" or some other solution perhaps better than this one, I just don't think that the arrow is anywhere near as subtle or confusing as you're saying. I've seen several kids use my Windows 8 tablets and those arrows are a pretty common element in modern apps and they there meaning was readily obvious to all of them.

I'm not saying the arrow is confusing. I'm saying it's not very good design, and its function is not consistent with the principles Microsoft came up with when designing Metro--the concept of horizontal scrolling and a continuous flow of information.

Dragging and moving a window, Aero snap, pinning at web site to the task bar, drag select, drag and drop move or copy, etc. are all pretty high level functions that have no chrome and few cues. At some point or another most everyone had to learn something about the UI of any computing device they are using and not everything was obvious. Microsoft had to cues and tips for Start Menu back in 1995 when it was new. I don’t disagree with your point, I'm only saying there plenty even on the desktop that have no cues that are pretty important functions or at the very least extremely useful.

If you don't disagree, then let's not discuss it anymore.

An individual program could have its own settings for menus fonts and sizes but then that kind of defeats the purpose of a global setting. So then an app would have yet another setting that switch between its own settings and the global ones.

We circle around to my original point, which is that there is no well-functioning global setting for this sort of functionality. DPI scaling is implemented terribly, and lowering resolution is an awful workaround. The entire idea is that if the system can't capably handle this--and I've yet to see any sort of evidence, let alone convincing evidence, as to why Microsoft cannot implement coherent and usable DPI scaling, or why Outlook should in any way rely on a system setting for the simple function of scaling text--then the app should be able to handle it independently. In fact, I've never really heard the argument that there should only be one global system-level control for increasing font size in an application centered around reading text. Even iOS lets me scale the font size in iBooks independently of the settings in the Usability menu.

Microsoft is clearly moving to the full screen single app concept (which is basically all Metro is). One would hope they realize all apps do not need to be globally scaled because of flaws in one.

But total lockdown is exactly the model in iOS and that does indeed seem to serve the purpose of lightweight, fast and dependable environment quite well.

iOS is not under "total lockdown" at all. iOS is indeed sandboxed, but that doesn't mean its apps exist in a vacuum. Apps are able to request managed access outside of their sandbox, which is how apps can talk to each other--how Dropbox can upload pictures from the Photos app, for instance. That's all I'm talking about, managed access. It is perfectly possible to create a secure way to let sandboxed apps talk to each other, and even to talk with a non-sandboxed environment like the desktop.

Total lockdown is a user-level account in Windows XP.

 

[Dogs]

Good lord. You take a cake for something.. Something special.. You just DON'T FUCKING GET IT. Licensing costs money lots of cash strapped companies just can't justify licensing shit that was in OS previously.

Licensing software is something effectively every company in the world does. It's a necessary cost of business. Software can be expensive, but it can also be cheap. It depends on what you're trying to do. At my organization, if I want to license some expensive ETL software or some genetic algorithm based optimization software or something, then yes, that would be an enormous amount of money, and somewhere along the line a VP or maybe even the CIO would have to approve that. Something like Start8, which when volume licensed costs a mere $3.50 per copy, doesn't even put a dent in the budget. If you were able to pay for a MAK license for X number of associates (Like $100,000+ for 1000 users), then the cost of X Start8 licenses (again, for 1000 users we're talking $3,500) is completely insignificant.

 

[AndreRio]

I don't like windows 8. but I am using it now, waiting for win8.1.

 

[DPI]

Good lord. You take a cake for something.. Something special.. You just DON'T FUCKING GET IT. Licensing costs money lots of cash strapped companies just can't justify licensing shit that was in OS previously.

Your idiotic line of REASONING/Logic didn't answer the point I made.

Stop quoting him, it busts through my ignore filter - which I suggest you engage as well - arguing with 24/7 Microsoft PRbot is not worth it because its like shaking hands with someone that just got done jerking it - why bother.

To the point, there's a bigger issue than licensing costs why corporations uniformly and flatly reject something like a third party start menu hack to restore functionality -- its a policy issue. CIO's and IT Managers that I've talked to all say the same ever since the earliest preview builds two years ago, and it was the same story at VM World that I just returned from when the topic of the future of Windows came up over drinks: no corporate decision maker wants to put a third party band-aid on something that needs to be supported first party and working out of the box, because "official support" is a big policy deal. With a third party start menu hack Microsoft is just going to say "tough shit we don't support it" if they are called upon. That's a dealbreaker.

Not to mention, with a single windows update Microsoft could patch the third party start menu's out of commission at any time. Now, is that likely, given they know they've worn everyone's tolerance and patience real thin with Win8? Probably not, but IT decision makers don't take those kinds of gambles.

MS has lost the Windows 8.x gamble with the corporate world, they tried to leap into the future too quickly by abandoning the past too soon, without having any clue what their future looks like except for a half-baked, hodge podge pseudo-integration of products and services that aren't really all that integrated when you get down to setting them up and hit one roadblock and "in the next version" gotcha after the next. Hopefully the learning experience will make Windows9 that much better.

 

[Dogs]

MS has lost the Windows 8.x gamble with the corporate world,

Unfortunately, as anybody who has ever done anything with IT knows, it's far to early to make that judgment call. Considering how long it took most shops just to hit Windows 7, it would be downright illogical to assume that Windows 8 will never wind up in the corporate world just because most companies haven't moved to it yet. Plenty of companies were just starting to wrap up Windows 7 deployment as Windows 8 came around. Even if Windows 8 were undeniably the best operating system ever created and offered irresistible possibilities and new value, few companies would be capable of deploying it within a year, so we still wouldn't see it in the corporate world. Trying to use the 'it hasn't been adopted by businesses' argument for any purpose other than demonstrating what not to use as an argument is immediately indicative of foolishness and blind dislike.

 

[Terpfen]

Unfortunately, as anybody who has ever done anything with IT knows, it's far to early to make that judgment call. Considering how long it took most shops just to hit Windows 7, it would be downright illogical to assume that Windows 8 will never wind up in the corporate world just because most companies haven't moved to it yet.

It's also illogical to apply the circumstances of Windows 7's adoption to a projection of Windows 8 future adoption. Windows 7 was slow on the uptake in part because of wariness after Vista and primarily because IT budgets fell through the floor with the state of the economy during the first several years of 7's existence.

The economy is still not very good, but IT budgets are coming back up at least a little bit, and the choice is Windows 7 over Windows 8. I can tell you that the IT department I work for will never put Windows 8 on any device we put out unless it's specifically requested by a person of sufficiently high influence and isolation—a department director's laptop, for example. Even then, we'll try to dissuade them from making that choice if possible. Meanwhile, we're in the process of phasing out end of life PCs running XP with, generally, Windows 7 64-bit (32-bit in some specific instances). And 7 will be around for quite a while.

 

[B00nie]

The fact is that windows is used only because it has had no working alternatives for so long and people are afraid of change so they want to continue using windows.

Now that Microsoft made the OS completely unfamiliar to people the good old interface is surprisingly enough found in linux instead of Win8. If more computer specialists were more enlightened this could really be the break linux has been waiting for.

Unfortunately so many people have invested to MS certs etc. that they're mentally hog-tied to the mess. They know they can make more money by building a mess on Windows instead of building something that just works instead.

 

[Eman D. Rahym]

Who says Windows is a mess? I know who does say Windows works and works well: the few billion end users who can't be bothered with wondering whether a bunch of hobbyists can be relied upon to maintain their OS of choice.

You're trying to compare a diffuse, unrelated, ad hoc group of PC enthusiasts who think Linux is cool with a compact, organized, motivated corporation who sees Windows as the way to support themselves and their families. That and a huge dollop of your own wishful thinking.

Why does the rabbit run faster than the fox? Because the fox is running for his dinner, the rabbit is running for his life.

 

[B00nie]

Who says Windows is a mess? I know who does say Windows works and works well: the few billion end users who can't be bothered with wondering whether a bunch of hobbyists can be relied upon to maintain their OS of choice.

You're trying to compare a diffuse, unrelated, ad hoc group of PC enthusiasts who think Linux is cool with a compact, organized, motivated corporation who sees Windows as the way to support themselves and their families. That and a huge dollop of your own wishful thinking.

Why does the rabbit run faster than the fox? Because the fox is running for his dinner, the rabbit is running for his life.

Yeah windows really works for:

Computer repair shops
Some private consultants and companies
Antivirus vendors
Microsoft

the rest of the world is just cursing it daily in between OS reinstalls and different types of infections, even after paying for AV.

Billions of users use windows because they don't know about the alternatives - and because every OEM pushes windows by default to new computers.

 

[heatlesssun]

the rest of the world is just cursing it daily in between OS reinstalls and different types of infections, even after paying for AV.

So lots of people were complaining about these things with Windows 7?

Billions of users use windows because they don't know about the alternatives - and because every OEM pushes windows by default to new computers.

And on the desktop all of the alternatives have their own problems. None of the desktop alternatives comes close to having the 3rd party support of Windows for instance.

 

[B00nie]

So lots of people were complaining about these things with Windows 7?

Were and are. And will continue with Windows8 except now they also have the modern UI to complain about

And on the desktop all of the alternatives have their own problems. None of the desktop alternatives comes close to having the 3rd party support of Windows for instance.

Can you specify more closely what you mean by 3rd party support? Drivers are generally not a problem with linux with a couple of exceptions. Software is plentiful as long as you stick to general home/office use. Best of all it's nearly all free. A large part of windows software can be run conveniently through wine.

Some specialized software which uses Microsoft native libraries or DRM are still harder to get to work on linux - but wine is advancing version by version.

I've migrated many friends and relatives to linux successfully. Their only gripe so far has been that Microsoft Silverlight doesn't work out of the box on content which uses DRM. That can be circumvented too by piping the stream through wine / ie.

 

[heatlesssun]

Were and are. And will continue with Windows8 except now they also have the modern UI to complain about

Yet Windows 7 was a historic success commercially and even in the PR world.

Can you specify more closely what you mean by 3rd party support? Drivers are generally not a problem with linux with a couple of exceptions.

3rd party support means 3rd party support. That means all that 3rd parties do to support a platform. And on the desktop Linux completely lacks the breadth and scale of this support.

Software is plentiful as long as you stick to general home/office use. Best of all it's nearly all free. A large part of windows software can be run conveniently through wine.

And all of this software on the desktop runs on Windows. And free is great, if you have no investment in the content that you're producing. The cost of Office compared to the value of the product that comes out of it is nothing for the people that really use it and need it.

Some specialized software which uses Microsoft native libraries or DRM are still harder to get to work on linux - but wine is advancing version by version.

So go through all of that hassle to make something work for which it was never designed, forgo support, all in an effort to save next to nothing.

I've migrated many friends and relatives to linux successfully. Their only gripe so far has been that Microsoft Silverlight doesn't work out of the box on content which uses DRM. That can be circumvented too by piping the stream through wine / ie.

There are plenty of people that can use Linux on their desktops if they don't want the latest hardware and software.

 

[B00nie]

Yet Windows 7 was a historic success commercially and even in the PR world.

A monopoly is most often very successful, isn't it?

My parents bought a new Win7 laptop. Paid AV and all. In 2 weeks it was infected with something that killed all file associations when combofix tried to get rid of it. Great success, flawless user experience as you said!

3rd party support means 3rd party support. That means all that 3rd parties do to support a platform. And on the desktop Linux completely lacks the breadth and scale of this support.

Most of the 3rd party crapware is never even wanted by end users. The world is so full of useless software. The irony is that due to inherent faults in windows these 3rd party softwares are often the trigger which makes windows autodestruct May I stress that none of the end users that I've migrated to linux so far have reported wanting any 3rd party software not available for linux. In a 5 year timeperiod. With one exception.

And all of this software on the desktop runs on Windows. And free is great, if you have no investment in the content that you're producing. The cost of Office compared to the value of the product that comes out of it is nothing for the people that really use it and need it.

Sure runs on windows, but you have to pay for windows to run it. Then after you pay you get penalized for it: Change motherboard? Reactivate. Change harddrive? Reactivate. Oh the joy of typing numbers to a bot for minutes.

Openoffice can do anything the paid office can, even better now that office has that horrid ribbon interface. Blows my mind every time I'm forced to use it.

So go through all of that hassle to make something work for which it was never designed, forgo support, all in an effort to save next to nothing.

It more than pays off when I no longer get support requests from friends/family. I haven't had to fix even a single computer now (outside of work) for 2 years. Each time someone comes to me with a messed up windows I slap a preconfigured linux on their computer and everyone so far has been amazed how stuff just works. Fast, reliably and no infections. The said Silverlight is used only on some very badly designed sites and luckily silverlight is being phased out. Even MS saw the mistake it did

There are plenty of people that can use Linux on their desktops if they don't want the latest hardware and software.

Yes actually most of the people have older hardware and nearly 100% of end users I've seen either have adware, malware, bloatware or just messed up registry and mismatching set of dlls resulting in a mess.

Having said that linux works very nicely even with cutting edge hardware. Graphics card drivers are traditionally a tricky issue for the first 4-6 months if you want to use the proprietary drivers. Now even the AMD open source drivers got huge improvements so a proprietary driver is not even necessary if you're not planning to play heavy games.

 

[Dogs]

Can you specify more closely what you mean by 3rd party support? Drivers are generally not a problem with linux with a couple of exceptions. Software is plentiful as long as you stick to general home/office use. Best of all it's nearly all free. A large part of windows software can be run conveniently through wine.

Software can be plentiful, maybe, but in my case it isn't.

I've migrated many friends and relatives to linux successfully. Their only gripe so far has been that Microsoft Silverlight doesn't work out of the box on content which uses DRM. That can be circumvented too by piping the stream through wine / ie.

In other words, your friends were complaining about a lack of third party support. And in this case, that's very important, because most people enjoy Netflix.

A monopoly is most often very successful, isn't it?

Maybe, but I don't see where that is relevant. Microsoft hardly meets the definition of a monopoly. There are other competitors in the market. These competitors, however, haven't been able to offer a product that is more desired by consumers. Everybody knows that OS X exists, yet nobody wants to switch to it because it doesn't offer the same value to them; It doesn't offer their desired user experience at their desired price range. Linux has also had plenty of opportunities for success in the consumer market, and yet people didn't want it. It's not that Microsoft doesn't have competition...it's that Microsoft outperforms their competition, and that is not a monopoly.

My parents bought a new Win7 laptop. Paid AV and all. In 2 weeks it was infected with something that killed all file associations when combofix tried to get rid of it. Great success, flawless user experience as you said!

So clearly you have a great track record of getting them set up with things.

Openoffice can do anything the paid office can, even better now that office has that horrid ribbon interface. Blows my mind every time I'm forced to use it.

Openoffice does not have the features I use, and the interface is vastly inferior. My organization has considered using Open Office to save licensing costs, but ultimately we decided that Microsoft Office was the vastly superior product, and was well worth the licensing costs.

It more than pays off when I no longer get support requests from friends/family. I haven't had to fix even a single computer now (outside of work) for 2 years. Each time someone comes to me with a messed up windows I slap a preconfigured linux on their computer and everyone so far has been amazed how stuff just works. Fast, reliably and no infections. The said Silverlight is used only on some very badly designed sites and luckily silverlight is being phased out. Even MS saw the mistake it did

...That's because they're probably going to someone else, now.

 

[heatlesssun]

A monopoly is most often very successful, isn't it?

I thought Android was the #1 OS today, as many people like yourself will proclaim. I do understand of course that Android isn't a desktop OS but by current legal standards, Windows would probably not be considered a monopoly.

My parents bought a new Win7 laptop. Paid AV and all. In 2 weeks it was infected with something that killed all file associations when combofix tried to get rid of it. Great success, flawless user experience as you said!

So with 700 million or so devices online, Windows 7 is a failure because of this? I never said anything about Windows 7 being invulnerable to attack. But your argument only reinforces the reason why a curated app store is necessary for Windows. People will install all kinds of stupid stuff and do all kinds of stupid things. I'd have been happy to tell your parents how to avoid infections without any need for paid AV.

Most of the 3rd party crapware is never even wanted by end users.

True to some extent, like the viruses that you mention, no one will both with that on desktop Linux because of it's extremely low market share.

The world is so full of useless software.

And the world is full of very useful software that neither one of us has ever seen.

The irony is that due to inherent faults in windows these 3rd party softwares are often the trigger which makes windows autodestruct May I stress that none of the end users that I've migrated to linux so far have reported wanting any 3rd party software not available for linux. In a 5 year timeperiod. With one exception.

My I stress that they probably don't do much beside web browsing and/or you running native Windows software for which there is no native Linux equivalent.

Sure runs on windows, but you have to pay for windows to run it. Then after you pay you get penalized for it: Change motherboard? Reactivate. Change harddrive? Reactivate. Oh the joy of typing numbers to a bot for minutes.

Read threads in this forum. All of this is simple or requires a simple phone call. How many people like your parents are going to change motherboards? Bottom line, Windows is valuable software. You can't even give Linux away on the desktop and it have much impact.

Openoffice can do anything the paid office can, even better now that office has that horrid ribbon interface. Blows my mind every time I'm forced to use it.

Nonsense. Anyone using advances capabilities of Office will say the same.

It more than pays off when I no longer get support requests from friends/family. I haven't had to fix even a single computer now (outside of work) for 2 years. Each time someone comes to me with a messed up windows I slap a preconfigured linux on their computer and everyone so far has been amazed how stuff just works. Fast, reliably and no infections. The said Silverlight is used only on some very badly designed sites and luckily silverlight is being phased out. Even MS saw the mistake it did

Wow, you really don't have any idea how to support Windows.


Yes actually most of the people have older hardware and nearly 100% of end users I've seen either have adware, malware, bloatware or just messed up registry and mismatching set of dlls resulting in a mess.

Having said that linux works very nicely even with cutting edge hardware. Graphics card drivers are traditionally a tricky issue for the first 4-6 months if you want to use the proprietary drivers. Now even the AMD open source drivers got huge improvements so a proprietary driver is not even necessary if you're not planning to play heavy games.[/QUOTE]

 

[B00nie]

I thought Android was the #1 OS today, as many people like yourself will proclaim. I do understand of course that Android isn't a desktop OS but by current legal standards, Windows would probably not be considered a monopoly.

Trollollollollol. I don't confuse desktops, servers and mobile devices.

So with 700 million or so devices online, Windows 7 is a failure because of this? I never said anything about Windows 7 being invulnerable to attack. But your argument only reinforces the reason why a curated app store is necessary for Windows. People will install all kinds of stupid stuff and do all kinds of stupid things. I'd have been happy to tell your parents how to avoid infections without any need for paid AV.

Linux stays secure without a 'curated app store' that forces devs to mutilate the GUI of their apps. Not to mention the cut MS takes from the distributors + the bad function of metro apps in general.

Curiously enough my parents have used their computer for years just as they previously did without getting infections to linux. What magic tricks would you recommend to a 68 year old woman who wants to click facebook links and open e-mail puppy attachments? I know - the windows way of security. DONT DO IT!

True to some extent, like the viruses that you mention, no one will both with that on desktop Linux because of it's extremely low market share.

So far. It's the second most common server platform already however. Hardly obscure.

And the world is full of very useful software that neither one of us has ever seen.

Chances are that if I haven't seen it I won't need it either. I have a feeling (and this is just a feeling) that around 80% of all windows software is somehow malicious or just otherwise needless. The remaining 20% is still a huge variety and almost without exception commercial software.

My I stress that they probably don't do much beside web browsing and/or you running native Windows software for which there is no native Linux equivalent.

May I stress that the vast majority of regular end users do not need anything else than a working browser, flash, email, open/libreoffice, gimp and perhaps some hobby software for AV content creation - all which is readily available for free on linux.

Read threads in this forum. All of this is simple or requires a simple phone call. How many people like your parents are going to change motherboards? Bottom line, Windows is valuable software. You can't even give Linux away on the desktop and it have much impact.

A huge amount of people have hardware failures every year. Millions in numbers. You don't have to tell me about the windows activation process. I've owned around 20 personal windows licenses over the years and have grown very wary of the little touches in them. I don't see much any value in Windows anymore. I wouldn't buy licenses if it wasn't still needed for gaming use. Even that is getting fixed with Steam kicking speed to the linux adoption.

Nonsense. Anyone using advances capabilities of Office will say the same.

Care to cite some examples as I call your bluff. Btw: most of the people who are using 'advanced' features of office are wasting resources on something that actually would belong to a real software developer instead of a "guy with an office" How many horrid, horrid excel tables I've seen during the years. One guy kinda understands it, untill he leaves the company, copies the excel with him to the next job and leaves the old company dead in the water with a contraption nobody else understands all the while the business secrets of the previous employer travel with the usb stick

Wow, you really don't have any idea how to support Windows.

Yeah looks like that. The same can be said with professional AV vendors, computer OEMs, retailer supports etc. which delivered the ready configured laptop to my parents for example!

And I'm glad there's a much safer and easyer alternative which enables a noob like me to eradicate problems like a magic stroke.

 

[Dogs]

So far. It's the second most common server platform already however. Hardly obscure.

The channels through which one compromises a server are completely different from those for a desktop. Nobody checks emails or downloads arbitrary files on a server, so making malicious email attachments, etc. for Linux is not fruitful, because in the target market (the desktop market), Linux is still obscure.

 

[B00nie]

The channels through which one compromises a server are completely different from those for a desktop. Nobody checks emails or downloads arbitrary files on a server, so making malicious email attachments, etc. for Linux is not fruitful, because in the target market (the desktop market), Linux is still obscure.

Linux lacks activex, dlls from year 1990s, office integrations etc. which make windows use extremely hazardous. It would be much much harder to infect a linux desktop user without tricking the user to grant privilege elevation manually. Also the variety of different linux distros also make wide sprung attacks harder as they have varying different methods of operation.

Same like OSX - the infections that spread were all based on people downloading warez and accepting privilege escalations.

 

[heatlesssun]

Trollollollollol. I don't confuse desktops, servers and mobile devices.

You do realize however that much criticism is leveled at Microsoft these days for Windows only being like 15% or so of the OS market because of mobile OSes? To say that Android is the #1 OS without qualification is specious at best. However mobile OSes are the ones that the IT journalism is focused on the most these days.

Linux stays secure without a 'curated app store' that forces devs to mutilate the GUI of their apps. Not to mention the cut MS takes from the distributors + the bad function of metro apps in general.

Desktop Linux stays secure because even an OS like Windows 8 has completely blown by it. Why would a hacker spend any time focusing on an desktop OS that has 5 times less market share than Windows 8?

Curiously enough my parents have used their computer for years just as they previously did without getting infections to linux. What magic tricks would you recommend to a 68 year old woman who wants to click facebook links and open e-mail puppy attachments? I know - the windows way of security. DONT DO IT!

Opening email attachments how? Yeah, this a problem for Windows because people seem to be happy to open them while running as an admin.

So far. It's the second most common server platform already however. Hardly obscure.

Servers and desktops are very different. We were talking about desktops.

May I stress that the vast majority of regular end users do not need anything else than a working browser, flash, email, open/libreoffice, gimp and perhaps some hobby software for AV content creation - all which is readily available for free on linux.

I don't disagree but all of the same software is also available for Windows and more.

A huge amount of people have hardware failures every year. Millions in numbers. You don't have to tell me about the windows activation process. I've owned around 20 personal windows licenses over the years and have grown very wary of the little touches in them. I don't see much any value in Windows anymore. I wouldn't buy licenses if it wasn't still needed for gaming use. Even that is getting fixed with Steam kicking speed to the linux adoption.

Steam fixing the gaming issue on Linux? Hardly.

Care to cite some examples as I call your bluff. Btw: most of the people who are using 'advanced' features of office are wasting resources on something that actually would belong to a real software developer instead of a "guy with an office"

Maybe people would just like to have the ability to do things on there own without the aid of another person. As so many Windows 8 proponents like to point out, IT budgets are squeezed, and no one can pay for a Windows 8 Start Menu replacement let alone a "real" software developer. At any rate if it means something to you to get the job done, why go for a 3rd rate product instead of the dominate market leader to save a few pennies that may come back to bite one in the proverbial ass?

And I'm glad there's a much safer and easyer alternative which enables a noob like me to eradicate problems like a magic stroke.

Sure, for those that don't do much or need much from their desktops, Linux is a fine alternative.

 

[heatlesssun]

It would be much much harder to infect a linux desktop user without tricking the user to grant privilege elevation manually.

Not necessarily. You might need admin rights to install software on either system. At which point the game over. Historically Windows software has needed those rights and to a large degree still does. Of course 100 times more software installed on Windows devices daily versus Linux desktops so it's hard to actually figure all of the implications.[/QUOTE]

 

[Wrench00]

You know I am not a Windows 8 supporter, but boonie you sure have some gross generalization about windows. If your family and or friends have issues its not about the OS its about the users.
The Weakest link in security 99% of the time are the users.

 

[Dogs]

Linux lacks activex, dlls from year 1990s, office integrations etc. which make windows use extremely hazardous.

You clearly don't understand Linux, Windows, or security.

Also the variety of different linux distros also make wide sprung attacks harder as they have varying different methods of operation.

I think you have a misguided understanding of distros, if you're honestly going to make that claim. The distros all operate in essentially the same manner. What differs from distro to distro is their choice of installed packages, and even then, most of them share the same core package choices.

 

[maverick786us]

It's free. Right now some of the ISO versions try to install clean (so an upgrade key doesn't work) but the final will be available as a free patch via either the Windows Store or just using Windows Update.
The new "start button" and the quicker access to your program list really does make the whole OS feel quicker and easier. It doesn't fix everything, but I've been really happy with the beta release.

If we talk about the retail version not beta, will Windows 8 users have the option to get free ISO of windows 8.1, so that they can make a clean install it instead of upgrade?

 

[Domingo]

If we talk about the retail version not beta, will Windows 8 users have the option to get free ISO of windows 8.1, so that they can make a clean install it instead of upgrade?

Good question. I'm pretty certain you'll have an option to download an ISO of Windows 8.1, but whether your activation code works on it might come down to what your Windows 8 license is.
If you have a full-on OEM license, I can pretty much guarantee it'll work just fine. If you have an upgrade license (designed to upgrade from Win 7 and earlier) you might not have the same amount of luck.
You can always DL the RTM version and give it at try. Just make a system image before you begin so you can go back if needed.

 

[maverick786us]

Good question. I'm pretty certain you'll have an option to download an ISO of Windows 8.1, but whether your activation code works on it might come down to what your Windows 8 license is.
If you have a full-on OEM license, I can pretty much guarantee it'll work just fine. If you have an upgrade license (designed to upgrade from Win 7 and earlier) you might not have the same amount of luck.
You can always DL the RTM version and give it at try. Just make a system image before you begin so you can go back if needed.

My HP Envy 15 TouchSmart came with Windows 8 inbuilt. So it should be an OEM license. Although HP didn't provide me a Windows 8 DVD

 

[Domingo]

My HP Envy 15 TouchSmart came with Windows 8 inbuilt. So it should be an OEM license. Although HP didn't provide me a Windows 8 DVD

You're probably fine. I'd use the "Windows 7 File Recovery" program (yup, even in Windows 8) to make a system image and then give the RTM a try. Worst case scenario, you just re-image your computer overnight and you're back where you are right now.