Microsoft Cancels Security Essentials for Windows XP

Thankfully I started cajoling all my XP business customers (and as many domestic as I could) to start migrating middle of last year. Was hard work but we got there.

So now I'm in the tidy position of having no major customers left on XP. The last few stragglers will probably be mopped up by the end of Feb.

I expect to see the price of Windows 7 Pro PCs skyrocket in the next few weeks.
 
I wonder if in april they will release "XP GOLD" with every fix preinstalled, never need another update again. Just install in a dark corner with no internet, and always be up today.
 
I believe it is money issue, since many old hardwares lack window 7 drivers. A direct upgrade is not possible. If they have to upgrade to window 7, they will have to purchase a new computer.
 
plugwash said:
So for those of us who still have some XP machines what is the least bad free antivirus nowadays?
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Drakenfeng said:
Linux? :(
Click to expand...

Pretty much the only answer if the only reason one has to stay with WinXP is due to hardware resources. Installed Ubuntu on my Mother's laptop that is only used for light web browsing and it was practically an upgrade in of itself. Machine, unfortunately, just does not run well with Win7.
 
Pitbully said:
The majority of people are lazy and ignorant. Hence why Windows 8 sucks. They don't want to learn anything new, (even if it is better), so they stand back and say, "no, it sucks, I won't use it." Take those same people and take away their Windows 7 for two weeks and install 8 on their machines, and most of them would never go back to 7.

When you ask them why it sucks, they will usually give you 2 answers:
1. metro sucks
2. I don't know why it sucks, it just does.

The metro interface works exactly like a full screen start menu. I have no idea why people find this so intimidating, you just launch a program from there...just like the old start menu. I have 8 on all of my computers and I still work from my desktop, just like I've always done and most of my shortcuts are on my desktop so I don't have to go into the metro interface.

I find it even funnier when people try and compare Windows 8 to Vista. Vista was a bad OS, there's no doubt about it, but its not even close to the worst thing Microsoft has ever put out. Windows 98 was horrible until SE came out and Windows ME was probably the worst OS I've ever seen. I remember trying to install ME on my machine for 2 full days, (it kept crashing during the install). Not to mention every time ME didn't shut down correctly you had to reload the entire fucking OS.

I was a full blown Windows 7 convert and had 7 Ultimate installed on every machine in the house. I loved 7 and thought I would hate 8 at first, but after a week of using it, I would never go back to 7. I can tell you for a fact that Windows 8 is the fastest, most stable OS Microsoft has ever put out and I'm very happy with it.

If your too ignorant and don't want to learn something new, try installing Classic Shell over Windows 8. I've never used it, but I hear it gives you that warm fuzzy feeling like your back in Windows 7 then you don't have to learn anything new. But for the love of god, please stop showing us all how dumb you are by saying Windows 8 sucks.
Click to expand...

ME was hilarious. I once installed it on a new hard drive, left it running doing nothing for two days, and it crashed.

Vista...I used Vista SP2 at home and work for years successfully, and just tried to update my parents computer from XP to my old Vista disk. It will not install service packs. Just tries, fails, and tries again. No helpful info why, just fails over and over. When shit like that is happening, why would I give Microsoft more money?

Linux? Yeah fucking right. I tried that a couple times, Linux can kiss my ass. It's a great OS as long as you don't want to use any hardware or run any 3rd party software.
 
I'll be glad when windows 9 comes out so I can quit listening to people defending windows 8.
 
plugwash said:
So for those of us who still have some XP machines what is the least bad free antivirus nowadays?
Click to expand...

Antivirus is just a drop in the bucket. No more security fixes is going to be a much bigger issue. If you MUST continue using XP, you're going to want to take it offline and segregate it from the rest of your network.

Cerulean said:
many companies falling into this XP category don't have the money, priority, or time for it.

Why fix what isn't broking / still working .. even if there are obvious virus infections but still can operate computer and do work?

There are sooooooo many companies out there, 'possibly the majority' of those companies running XP. no?
Click to expand...

Come on, XP is 12 years old.
 
Cancellation my ass. All they are gonna do is put in an OS version check so it won't run on XP.

It's not like they have a different version for every OS.
 
Bamboo said:
I'll be glad when windows 9 comes out so I can quit listening to people defending windows 8.
Click to expand...

I'll be glad when Windows 9 comes out just so I can quit listening to people bitching about Windows 8.
 
Pitbully said:
I'll be glad when Windows 9 comes out just so I can quit listening to people bitching about Windows 8.
Click to expand...

And, people will still bitch about Windows 9.

I still keep a Windows XP installation in VMWare Workstation.

Why?

Many game developers, even current ones, have not added proper support for anything newer than Windows Vista.

I have said it before in another thread, that there are certain games that do not operate properly in either Windows 7 or Windows 8.

For example, the F2P game I play, Pangya, has the following issues under 7 and 8:
  • Start Menu button disappears when game is running past the launcher.
  • Skype throws an "Out of memory" error and shuts down.
  • Steam shows an exception error and shuts down.
  • Alt-tabbing out of the game causes the taskbar to flicker.
In Windows XP? None of those issues.

Heck, many Korean-based F2P games suffer odd issues with Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Sim City 4 is another one. Highways and roads tend to disappear under both software and hardware rendering inside Windows 7 and 8. Graphics performance stutters and slows with panning and zooming. Buildings tend to glitch out. Clouds tend to disappear.

Windows XP? Nearly zero issues.

After using both Windows 7 and 8 and trying multiple video card driver versions, nothing fixes it. I run Sim City 4 in VM now because of those issues.

Older games pre-Windows XP have odd issues running under Windows 7 and 8 as well.

Final Fantasy XI is another. It varies from user to user, whether Nvidia or AMD video cards, and going by various forum postings and friends' experiences, there are graphical issues randomly throughout the game. One friend has flickering textures, another friend with texture and lighting glitches. I have no such issues on my system (Win 8.1 Pro, AMD Radeon 6950), but I've seen my friends' issues firsthand when I see it running on their computers. And, these are computers that were bought or built new within the last three years (2010 to 2013).

The game has a DirectX 8.1-based engine, yet Square-Enix has not bothered to update it nor create a straight-up PC version that isn't a port of the Playstation 2 version.

It's either because Microsoft updated the way graphics are rendered and how DirectX runs older DirectX-based games under Windows 7 and beyond, or game developers are not willing to support newer operating systems from Vista and beyond.

It's just purely disgusting how much of a split there is between game developers and Microsoft Windows. A new Windows version comes out and developers are slow to adopt it or support it.

I am literally forced to keep Windows XP for as long as I can because some games do not run properly under Windows 7 and later. I am hoping there comes a day VMWare Workstation adds GPU passthrough support so I can natively install video cards inside Windows XP installation. it would be a godsend if I ever that happen.
 
Doesn't 7+ REQUIRE > 1024x600 res? This means my netbook will never get upgraded.
 
octoberasian said:
And, people will still bitch about Windows 9.
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Personally I never heard much complains about Windows 7. Microsoft got it right, and IMO is the most solid OS we've seen from Microsoft yet. There is a noticeable difference in the general reception.

I hope Windows 9 will be as good as Win 7:)
 
Bamboo said:
Just upgrade to 7 guys. You'll be happy with it.;)
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I agree. I hated Vista so I held onto XP. Then I finally upgraded to 7. XP does a couple things better than 7, but overall, 7 is definitely better. I haven't used 8.x yet, so I can't speak from exp.
 
octoberasian said:
And, people will still bitch about Windows 9.

I still keep a Windows XP installation in VMWare Workstation.

Why?

Many game developers, even current ones, have not added proper support for anything newer than Windows Vista.

I have said it before in another thread, that there are certain games that do not operate properly in either Windows 7 or Windows 8.

For example, the F2P game I play, Pangya, has the following issues under 7 and 8:
  • Start Menu button disappears when game is running past the launcher.
  • Skype throws an "Out of memory" error and shuts down.
  • Steam shows an exception error and shuts down.
  • Alt-tabbing out of the game causes the taskbar to flicker.
In Windows XP? None of those issues.

Heck, many Korean-based F2P games suffer odd issues with Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Sim City 4 is another one. Highways and roads tend to disappear under both software and hardware rendering inside Windows 7 and 8. Graphics performance stutters and slows with panning and zooming. Buildings tend to glitch out. Clouds tend to disappear.

Windows XP? Nearly zero issues.

After using both Windows 7 and 8 and trying multiple video card driver versions, nothing fixes it. I run Sim City 4 in VM now because of those issues.

Older games pre-Windows XP have odd issues running under Windows 7 and 8 as well.

Final Fantasy XI is another. It varies from user to user, whether Nvidia or AMD video cards, and going by various forum postings and friends' experiences, there are graphical issues randomly throughout the game. One friend has flickering textures, another friend with texture and lighting glitches. I have no such issues on my system (Win 8.1 Pro, AMD Radeon 6950), but I've seen my friends' issues firsthand when I see it running on their computers. And, these are computers that were bought or built new within the last three years (2010 to 2013).

The game has a DirectX 8.1-based engine, yet Square-Enix has not bothered to update it nor create a straight-up PC version that isn't a port of the Playstation 2 version.

It's either because Microsoft updated the way graphics are rendered and how DirectX runs older DirectX-based games under Windows 7 and beyond, or game developers are not willing to support newer operating systems from Vista and beyond.

It's just purely disgusting how much of a split there is between game developers and Microsoft Windows. A new Windows version comes out and developers are slow to adopt it or support it.

I am literally forced to keep Windows XP for as long as I can because some games do not run properly under Windows 7 and later. I am hoping there comes a day VMWare Workstation adds GPU passthrough support so I can natively install video cards inside Windows XP installation. it would be a godsend if I ever that happen.
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I totally understand what you are saying but how much should developers invest in old games on new OS's that don't add to the bottom line anymore? You have a work around now like stated, vm's or keep an old XP machine around. I find it hard to have sympathy when it clearly states when buying the game what the OS requirements are. Anything more than that and your on your own.
 
Lets see...

If your sound drivers crashed in XP while gaming you had to reboot the system. With Vista it was Ctrl/Alt/Del to bring up task manager to close the game. Restart the game and you were back in business without rebooting. How does that suck? If you selected your hardware properly Vista performed every bit as good as Windows 7 but (know-nothings) still complain about how bad Vista was and how good Windows 7 (nothing more than Vista Second Edition) is. (hint: the problem was never Vista but bad drivers and poor hardware selection).

If I can teach an old person how to use Windows 8 in under 10 minutes what does that say about the "so-called" techies who are befuddled by Windows 8? If you ever want to get an IT job and have a long successful career you better get over complaining about new o/s's and learn and adapt.
 
Aluisious said:
Linux? Yeah fucking right. I tried that a couple times, Linux can kiss my ass. It's a great OS as long as you don't want to use any hardware or run any 3rd party software.
Click to expand...

Try it again. Hardware compatibility is very high these days. There are a lot of alternatives to the big name software packages. I'm a Windows guy through and through, but Linux is a damn great OS. Those complaints sound like they are from a while ago... I think my only Linux machines now are web development VM's.
 
Microsoft is dumping support for a 12 year old OS, and stopping support on their AV for it. Office 365 won't run on it, either (or Vista, IIRC). Even if you bought a PC in 2007 with XP, it's getting long in the tooth and it may still work, but the hardware itself will fail fairly soon. Sure, you can replace the HDD and install XP again, but why? Some times, it's best to move on. When I see a Windows 98 machine, I say the same thing.

600px-NewServicec-OMAM.jpg
 
I finally stopped supporting Windows 98 when I was doing pc service. A couple people gave me dirty looks but those are the same penny pinching SOB's I didn't want in the first place. XP was great but time to move on or take the machine offline if possible.
 
BladeVenom said:
VMware.
Click to expand...
VMWare can help, but it doesn't solve everything.

If you're dealing with specialized hardware that requires XP, and VMWare is unable to pass that hardware directly to the virtual machine, you're still up a creek.
 
Advil said:
What I see is invincible ignorance. The true definition of it.

I am still repairing and reinstalling XP machines for customers, not many, but enough to be concerning. This is personal and business about an even split.

I tell every single one of them that in April the game is up.

If the machine is still running I scan every one of them and clean them up, and every last one has malware of some kind on it. Can't remember the last time I saw an XP machine come through my doors that didn't have at least one something nasty on it.

It doesn't help a damn thing that these are the people who desperately need to buy a new computer... ANY new computer. The $350 piece of junk HP/Dell/Toshiba is perfect, even with Windows 8. But instead of sitting down and giving people JUST 5 MINUTES to show them the 3 of 4 different mouse clicks we perpetuate the same bullshit that has happened every single time Microsoft releases a new OS. "It sucks. It's new. It sucks."

Windows 8 is NOT windows Vista. It does not have any unduly serious problems with its underlying design, performance or security. Vista was a dog both in performance and memory usage. It's startup and shutdown times were unacceptable. It had runaway background processes for no reason. Beyond that, it does the same job as Windows 7, which is the perfected vision of Vista.

What does windows 8 need to shut people up other than bringing back the classic Start menu? Nothing. Not a damn thing.

But the bitching and "he said, she said, my second cousin's dog said that 8 sucks." Is quite literally RESPONSIBLE for many of my customers thinking that they are somehow going to stretch their usage of XP until the next Windows release.

That's a #Q@$# BAD IDEA. Because those of us in IT know the rumors about MS being off-balance with the reception of Win 8... and we may not even get a traditional OS for Win 9... or then again we might. The point is, we are paving the road to go through this all over again with Windows 7... being technology locked in a 12+ old OS, while in every other industry people SOMEHOW survive having their iOS or Android device get the OS updated yearly without throwing tantrums the likes of which MS desktop users throw.

But we are causing our own worst nightmare. I have to listen to people telling me they won't replace their XP machines because someone says "8 sux" but not a one of these people have any clue why other than someone else said so.

So here we are, April barreling down upon us, and I'm having to do crazy workarounds just to get windows update working on each reinstall of XP knowing that that by May or June the security situation is going to be dire indeed and beyond that software developers are SALIVATING at the chance to finally say "No more support for XP! See, even MS doesn't support it anymore."

We're going to go into the teeth of this with 20+ percent of machines still running XP... which is uncharted territory. I don't like dealing with freaked out, upset, frustrated people. And this is going to generate a lot of them.

- Extra strength rant, off -
Click to expand...

Yes, and no.

I, too, have computers coming in daily, where I am fixing the issues people have. Yes, the majority of the machines are XP. Before I even touch them, I advise the customer they are putting good $ down on a machine which may become a Virus Magnet come April. I also state the computer is old and slow, with no 32 bit OS, not enough CPU, and not enough Ram to keep up with what they want to do with the computer.

What do they do then? Ask if they can buy a Windows 7 machine, or anything "without 8."

They do not like 8. Why? Well, your argument is: It is us, the [H]ard core users whining about 8 "sucking." Or their friends complaining about 8 "sucking."

Here is my simple counter argument: People HATE change. And this change, Windows 8, they perceive it to be a FORCED change. Forced change is abhorrent to the Average Joe American.

In addition, people HATE having to RELEARN how to use things. You are going up against the "Why the *^(%%& am I having to learn how to navigate a new computer? Why can't I navigate it like my old one?"

Look at Android versions. Ice Cream Sandwich to Jelly Bean... See any major differences in how the OS is navigated? No. Not at all. You did not have to relearn how to use a tablet going from one to the other. Same. Way. Of. Doing. Things. - THAT is the issue here.

Micro$oft wanted to ensure they were the top dog in OS. To do so, they attempted to put a tablet overlay onto ALL of its OS iterations, to make it so the General Public would buy Micro$oft OS, and not buy different OS due to different platform (Tablet, Smart Phone, Laptop, or Desktop...) The intent was to give One Face to the General Public, so they would choose the Same Face on all of the platforms. It was a MARKETING MOVE, to ensure people bought Windows OS. There was NO need to change the interface due to technological advances. The need was to shore up Windows OS against Android/ Apple. I believe it has failed.

I just hope Micro$oft changes to a more realistic route, now that Ballmer is no longer at the helm...

And hopefully, 9 comes out, and is more intuitive, less learning curve, and less crappy looking, so that Joe Average welcomes it.

http://slashdot.org/topic/bi/windows-9-already/

Look at the % of XP vs. 8/8.1 - then see if someone can compare the "uptake" of 8/8.1 vs. Vista, when Vista was introduced. I think you will see 8 is performing as well as Vista, which is not a good sign...
 
As for Microsoft Security Essentials: The last reports I saw were this: It would miss approximately 39% of all virus and malware in controlled testing. (Same testing used to rank "which antivirus is best.")

That screams of abandonment of the program. Microsoft needs people to buy new OS and product. One way to make this happen is to force people to move to the next platform.
 
MSE is pretty useless from experience. More false positives than anything.
 
Not sure the hate on Vista. I installed it on my dad's computer I built for him over 6 years ago and to this day not a single blue screen.
It has been rock solid and works perfectly for him.
 
ep0x73 said:
Not sure the hate on Vista. I installed it on my dad's computer I built for him over 6 years ago and to this day not a single blue screen.
It has been rock solid and works perfectly for him.
Click to expand...

I had similar results back when it was around. Great OS for me. But, any research or reading forums or anything and you'd see that it really wasn't that great for everyone. Some of it was due to running on shitty hardware (OEM fault), but when 7 was released, you could really see how bad Vista was at resource management, speed, etc..
 
Ur_Mom said:
when 7 was released, you could really see how bad Vista was at resource management, speed, etc..
Click to expand...
Vista and 7 aren't all that much different when it comes to resource management or speed...

In fact, Vista can actually be slightly more zippy (in certain scenarios ) than Windows 7 on the same hardware. The SuperFetch and Search services included in Vista were far more aggressive, which meant cache misses happened less often when loading programs and searching files.

Windows 7 toned these aspects down in order to not bog-down slower hardware, at the expensive of fully utilizing faster hardware.
 
ep0x73 said:
Not sure the hate on Vista. I installed it on my dad's computer I built for him over 6 years ago and to this day not a single blue screen.
It has been rock solid and works perfectly for him.
Click to expand...

My experience when it first came out was that Vista + Nvidia was constant BSODs for the first six months. Mostly video diver crashes. After that it's been almost perfectly stable.

While you could blame that on Nvidia, you have to consider that MS changed the driver model and didn't give them enough time to make stable drivers.
 
octoberasian said:
And, people will still bitch about Windows 9.

I still keep a Windows XP installation in VMWare Workstation.

Why?

Many game developers, even current ones, have not added proper support for anything newer than Windows Vista.

I have said it before in another thread, that there are certain games that do not operate properly in either Windows 7 or Windows 8.

For example, the F2P game I play, Pangya, has the following issues under 7 and 8:
  • Start Menu button disappears when game is running past the launcher.
  • Skype throws an "Out of memory" error and shuts down.
  • Steam shows an exception error and shuts down.
  • Alt-tabbing out of the game causes the taskbar to flicker.
In Windows XP? None of those issues.

Heck, many Korean-based F2P games suffer odd issues with Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Sim City 4 is another one. Highways and roads tend to disappear under both software and hardware rendering inside Windows 7 and 8. Graphics performance stutters and slows with panning and zooming. Buildings tend to glitch out. Clouds tend to disappear.

Windows XP? Nearly zero issues.

After using both Windows 7 and 8 and trying multiple video card driver versions, nothing fixes it. I run Sim City 4 in VM now because of those issues.

Older games pre-Windows XP have odd issues running under Windows 7 and 8 as well.

Final Fantasy XI is another. It varies from user to user, whether Nvidia or AMD video cards, and going by various forum postings and friends' experiences, there are graphical issues randomly throughout the game. One friend has flickering textures, another friend with texture and lighting glitches. I have no such issues on my system (Win 8.1 Pro, AMD Radeon 6950), but I've seen my friends' issues firsthand when I see it running on their computers. And, these are computers that were bought or built new within the last three years (2010 to 2013).

The game has a DirectX 8.1-based engine, yet Square-Enix has not bothered to update it nor create a straight-up PC version that isn't a port of the Playstation 2 version.

It's either because Microsoft updated the way graphics are rendered and how DirectX runs older DirectX-based games under Windows 7 and beyond, or game developers are not willing to support newer operating systems from Vista and beyond.

It's just purely disgusting how much of a split there is between game developers and Microsoft Windows. A new Windows version comes out and developers are slow to adopt it or support it.

I am literally forced to keep Windows XP for as long as I can because some games do not run properly under Windows 7 and later. I am hoping there comes a day VMWare Workstation adds GPU passthrough support so I can natively install video cards inside Windows XP installation. it would be a godsend if I ever that happen.
Click to expand...

QFT

I dont even want to go to our governments central systems where alot of software are coded exlusively for XP and WILL NOT RUN on 7/8
 
octoberasian said:
And, people will still bitch about Windows 9.

I still keep a Windows XP installation in VMWare Workstation.

Why?

Many game developers, even current ones, have not added proper support for anything newer than Windows Vista.

I have said it before in another thread, that there are certain games that do not operate properly in either Windows 7 or Windows 8.

For example, the F2P game I play, Pangya, has the following issues under 7 and 8:
  • Start Menu button disappears when game is running past the launcher.
  • Skype throws an "Out of memory" error and shuts down.
  • Steam shows an exception error and shuts down.
  • Alt-tabbing out of the game causes the taskbar to flicker.
In Windows XP? None of those issues.

Heck, many Korean-based F2P games suffer odd issues with Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Sim City 4 is another one. Highways and roads tend to disappear under both software and hardware rendering inside Windows 7 and 8. Graphics performance stutters and slows with panning and zooming. Buildings tend to glitch out. Clouds tend to disappear.

Windows XP? Nearly zero issues.

After using both Windows 7 and 8 and trying multiple video card driver versions, nothing fixes it. I run Sim City 4 in VM now because of those issues.

Older games pre-Windows XP have odd issues running under Windows 7 and 8 as well.

Final Fantasy XI is another. It varies from user to user, whether Nvidia or AMD video cards, and going by various forum postings and friends' experiences, there are graphical issues randomly throughout the game. One friend has flickering textures, another friend with texture and lighting glitches. I have no such issues on my system (Win 8.1 Pro, AMD Radeon 6950), but I've seen my friends' issues firsthand when I see it running on their computers. And, these are computers that were bought or built new within the last three years (2010 to 2013).

The game has a DirectX 8.1-based engine, yet Square-Enix has not bothered to update it nor create a straight-up PC version that isn't a port of the Playstation 2 version.

It's either because Microsoft updated the way graphics are rendered and how DirectX runs older DirectX-based games under Windows 7 and beyond, or game developers are not willing to support newer operating systems from Vista and beyond.

It's just purely disgusting how much of a split there is between game developers and Microsoft Windows. A new Windows version comes out and developers are slow to adopt it or support it.

I am literally forced to keep Windows XP for as long as I can because some games do not run properly under Windows 7 and later. I am hoping there comes a day VMWare Workstation adds GPU passthrough support so I can natively install video cards inside Windows XP installation. it would be a godsend if I ever that happen.
Click to expand...



Yep, older games that were awesome in their hey day usually will not run on anything later than XP.
NASCAR Sim Racing is one. Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed is another.
Hell, Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed would barely run on XP as it was made back in the Windows 98 days. That is just an example of a couple more games that WILL NOT run on Windows 7 or 8.

And that damn "Compatibility" mode crap doesn't work at all. If they could get that to actually work XP wouldn't be needed.

I guess for those of us that wish to run the very old games or old software are stuck with either running XP on a VM or load it on an older system and keep it off line.

My plan is I downloaded WSUS Offline http://www.wsusoffline.net/ and will just download all the dang updates prior to April and burn them to a DVD and keep handy to update XP as far as it can and just keep the system off line.
 
Will it be necessary to keep these XP machines offline completely? Are they at risk if they are connected, but not being used for web browsing or downloading?
 
I just don't see some hacker wanting to crack into some persons's home PC when they won't gain much.
Generally they hit corp systems to take over dozens of computers with bot's, these are the ones in which XP will be a liability.

I also agree that if they included in say W9 the ability for older games to run smoothly without the need for jumping hoops or running XP in VM many would be satisfied and upgrade.
 
I didn't even know that Security Essentials worked with XP...I thought it was only compatible with Vista and up
 
Pitbully said:
The majority of people are lazy and ignorant. Hence why Windows 8 sucks. They don't want to learn anything new, (even if it is better), so they stand back and say, "no, it sucks, I won't use it." Take those same people and take away their Windows 7 for two weeks and install 8 on their machines, and most of them would never go back to 7.

When you ask them why it sucks, they will usually give you 2 answers:
1. metro sucks
2. I don't know why it sucks, it just does.

The metro interface works exactly like a full screen start menu. I have no idea why people find this so intimidating, you just launch a program from there...just like the old start menu. I have 8 on all of my computers and I still work from my desktop, just like I've always done and most of my shortcuts are on my desktop so I don't have to go into the metro interface.

I find it even funnier when people try and compare Windows 8 to Vista. Vista was a bad OS, there's no doubt about it, but its not even close to the worst thing Microsoft has ever put out. Windows 98 was horrible until SE came out and Windows ME was probably the worst OS I've ever seen. I remember trying to install ME on my machine for 2 full days, (it kept crashing during the install). Not to mention every time ME didn't shut down correctly you had to reload the entire fucking OS.

I was a full blown Windows 7 convert and had 7 Ultimate installed on every machine in the house. I loved 7 and thought I would hate 8 at first, but after a week of using it, I would never go back to 7. I can tell you for a fact that Windows 8 is the fastest, most stable OS Microsoft has ever put out and I'm very happy with it.

If your too ignorant and don't want to learn something new, try installing Classic Shell over Windows 8. I've never used it, but I hear it gives you that warm fuzzy feeling like your back in Windows 7 then you don't have to learn anything new. But for the love of god, please stop showing us all how dumb you are by saying Windows 8 sucks.
Click to expand...

I had to work on a windows 8 machine and had to google how to close a program... for someone that has been using computers since command lines 20+ years ago I think that's a problem... nothing in 8 is obvious, more of a "just swipe randomly and hope whatever you want to happen happens"
 
FLECOM said:
I had to work on a windows 8 machine and had to google how to close a program... for someone that has been using computers since command lines 20+ years ago I think that's a problem... nothing in 8 is obvious, more of a "just swipe randomly and hope whatever you want to happen happens"
Click to expand...

Wow....which program? I am most curious.
 
I think it was internet explorer or something? the metro version, could not figure out how to actually close a metro app (besides using Alt+F4, they could not honestly expect people to use that)...

I actually had one client that would restart her computer every time she wanted to use a different program that one made me giggle a bit...
 
FLECOM said:
I think it was internet explorer or something? the metro version, could not figure out how to actually close a metro app (besides using Alt+F4, they could not honestly expect people to use that)...

I actually had one client that would restart her computer every time she wanted to use a different program that one made me giggle a bit...
Click to expand...

That's really the main problem I have with 8/8.1. Performance and compatibility is great, but the Metro UI just feels completely useless to me.

Most of the traditional menus (Network Adapter Settings, Joining to Domain, etc) all remain relatively untouched. But the method of reaching them changed for absolutely no reason. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or flow to the entire thing.

Just didn't really see the need to change the desktop environment approach as 7 had it just about perfect from a usability standpoint.

And don't even get me started about Metro on Server. There's some awesome features incorporated, but good lord that UI is just remarkably bad for enterprise level.
 
ChristmasGT said:
And don't even get me started about Metro on Server. There's some awesome features incorporated, but good lord that UI is just remarkably bad for enterprise level.
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ya talk about mind blown...

"thanks for installing server 2012 enterprise, login with your Live(TM) account and check your emails and stocks!" dafuq?
 
The problem I run into most, is that people want to know why they need to upgrade the OS or buy a new computer just to continue doing what they've been doing with their old one. They spend a lot of time on the web, use a word processor, and maybe stream netflix or some other video source. Which they've been doing just fine with XP. And they want to know what they will be able to do with the new software and computer that they can't do now, other than just continue to do what they're doing? They don't want more bells and whistles on their computer. They don't want a fancy, shiney new interface. They aren't doing any video editing or music composing, no autocad, nothing new. So why should they need to upgrade to anything? Because people want to sell them stuff? I introduced them to Firefox with multiple tabs long ago, and it worked great, even with lots of tabs open. Now, it gobbles up memory until the machine freezes. For what? What's the great advances that require gigabytes of memory, a new processor, a new video card, to the average user?
 
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