Someone could make the fastest, best handling car in the world, but if you had to sit upside down and drive with your feet, I doubt they would sell very many of them.
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Windows 8, 8.1 About to Overtake Plunging XP
- Thread starter CommanderFrank
- Start date
Someone could make the fastest, best handling car in the world, but if you had to sit upside down and drive with your feet, I doubt they would sell very many of them.
You're going to see more 8.1 for the simple reason that as time goes on, people are tossing their desktop computers and laptops as everyone adopts the cell phone as their computing platform.
Now why you need an enterprise-level OS like 8.1 to be able to do all the simple stuff that people do on their phones - that's what you really need to be asking. The answer is that Micro$oft calls the shots with their OS, and if they make the bonehead decision that they will only ever offer one version of Windoze for consumers, and that version will be for any and all consumer devices, then the shitload of memory, CPU power and battery capacity that your phone has is largely wasted on a bloated OS like 8.
And again - no mention or recognition that XP is still being supported by Micro$oft until 2019 - under the guise of POS2009. A few registry entries is all you need.
Now why you need an enterprise-level OS like 8.1 to be able to do all the simple stuff that people do on their phones - that's what you really need to be asking. The answer is that Micro$oft calls the shots with their OS, and if they make the bonehead decision that they will only ever offer one version of Windoze for consumers, and that version will be for any and all consumer devices, then the shitload of memory, CPU power and battery capacity that your phone has is largely wasted on a bloated OS like 8.
And again - no mention or recognition that XP is still being supported by Micro$oft until 2019 - under the guise of POS2009. A few registry entries is all you need.
Good luck doing any truely productive work on a phone. Browse some websites, a short e-mail or two sure. Photoshop 30 images like I did last night or an e-mail that runs several pages? Not.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
I've not burned music to a CD in some time but I just tried out your scenario. Popped a blank CD into my BD-ROM DVD/CD burner on the sig rig machine running x86 8.1 Update with all the latest updates. Then I selected a folder with mp3s, right clicked "Send to", selected the drive with the blank CD then a dialog displayed asking how I wanted the CD to be created, USB Flash or DVD/CD arrangement, I chose DVD/CD. Selected a few more folders with about 100 songs in total with the disc about 2/3 used. Then finally I closed it out by burning to disc. The disc ejected and I took it to my wife's 2007 Ford Fusion with the original radio/CD player in it and it worked perfectly.
My wife uses FB in IE modern on her Dell Venue 8 Pro everyday, no problems there either.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
This case is vastly over stated. Just like the example gdonovan mentioned with burning mp3s to a disc in XP versus 8. I tried to follow along what he was describing and it works pretty much like it does in XP. I've not touched an XP machine in a long time and it's been even longer than that since I burned music to a CD. But just by going along with what he described I was able to it in 8.1 successfully. There was no need to drive with my feet, it worked pretty much like it has forever.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
Plenty of mention of this actually. And however it turns out for people is how it turns out. This is unsupported by Microsoft for end user devices.
ChronoDetector
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2008
- Messages
- 2,783
So it took 2 years to overtake XP's usage.... yeah that's a huge achievement there. Microsoft should just focus on Windows 10 and not make the same mistakes they did in Windows 8.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
It took Windows 7 about the same amount of time to overtake XP didn't it? Of course XP usage was much higher three years ago than now.
It's unlikely they Microsoft will make the same mistakes with 10, they'll make different ones. But it looks like they are very well aware and conscious of the UI issues in 8 and at least from the desktop side in the 10 previews to date, the big problems with the UI with desktops have been resolved. Lot's of cleanup and loose ends still, but no more modern apps or Start Screen taking over the whole screen without windowing. That was by far the biggest complaint that I've seen with 8.
Doesn't work on her 2014 dodge Avenger but the disc done with XP works fine.
Same with my Challenger.
Look around you - and tell me how many people are "doing productive work" - on any device? The whole goal of the post dot-com era is to turn people into consumers. The VAST MAJORITY of consumer computing devices have been designed to force people into being CONSUMERS of various types of content.
And here's a news flash for ya: For people that want or need to do creative things with computers -> they're buying Mac's.
Not I and I do tons of productive work on a PC- From extensive video editing and ripping, tons of Photoshop, several technical articles running to hundreds of pages on various subjects, Chrysler ECU calibration reverse engineering and modification, three websites being maintained and updated, 3dfx driver compiling and modification, the list goes on.
Plenty of creative work happening here. Real work will always be done on a PC or in some cases a Mac. Tablets and phones have their uses, real intensive work isn't it.
Ur_Mom
Fully [H]
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 20,690
I think the biggest complaint with Windows 8 (and it's being resolved in 10) is the lack of customer options. If they didn't want Modern UI - too damn bad. If they wanted windows apps - piss off. With Windows 10, the option will be there (Continuum). You CAN use Windows 10 just like Windows 8 if you'd like. Like many have said before - it's excellent on touch devices. But, very lacking on keyboard and mouse. So, giving users that option is huge in Windows 10. You're not alienating Windows 8 users or tablet users. You're not alienating the Windows 7/XP users that hate Metro. You're putting them together and making more people happy (some will still hate it, but Micro$haft suxors, right?
). This was the #1 issue with Windows 8 in many areas - user options. The user was forced into that OS. Things got a bit better with 8.1. With Windows 10, it's a lot better. Plus, they are opening up desktop users to the app store (some apps were used on desktops, but it wasn't very many). I'm going to like having a Surface that is a tablet when I want it to be, full screen apps, etc.., and a laptop when I want it to be. It is a multifuction device. It'll be nice to have a multifunction OS to go with it.
I'm hacking your XP machine.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
This sounds more like a hardware issue than something to do with Windows 8. It's just files on a CD, what would the difference in that between 8 and XP? My guess is that that code in 8 and XP for this is pretty much the same.
Unknown-One
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2005
- Messages
- 8,909
You realize Windows Phone is Windows 8, right? And that it just posted battery-life figures better than Android across the board...
Even when compared on identical hardware (the HTC One M8 comes in Android and WP flavors), Windows Phone beats Android on battery life.
Sounds like Android is the one wasting memory, CPU power, and battery capacity, not Windows.
Ur_Mom
Fully [H]
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 20,690
Depends on the device. My Android is shit for battery life (Galaxy S4). My Windows Phone is much better.
Others with Androids can last longer than both of mine. Almost combined. It all depends on the device, the ROM, the version, etc...
Unknown-One
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2005
- Messages
- 8,909
Like I said, even when both OS's are compared on identical hardware, Windows Phone has superior battery life.
Her Win8 Samsung laptop doesn't do it right, just files on a CD to be played. There is nothing unique about her laptop either just a plain jane over the counter unit. The HP she had before with Win7 Premium was exceptional, it gave her no problems at all.
Why keep screwing around with it? I pop the disc in my XP machines and it nails it every time. I have done several for her car and mine without failure under XP.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
Out of curiosity I was just trying to reproduce your CD scenario. I've never tried it before with Windows 8.x and it was quick and easy enough to do. I think one thing that get lost in the Windows 8.x is that while many people have had problems with it, many haven't. Maybe more have had issues with it than not but when you're talking about a few hundred million people it's not an exact science.
If XP works for you and you're having problems with 8 and think its crap that's what you think and I can't change that. But obviously it's harder for me to come to the same conclusion when the scenario you described worked perfectly for and like it does in XP.
I freely admit that my experience with Win8 is limited to this single machine, which for both my wife and I is very frustrating experience. Neither one of us would own a Win8 PC based on what this laptop has put us through.
More than once she has asked for Win7 to be installed, I can't blame her. I like Win7 too and the next machine I'm going to build (soon I'm getting the itch) will be a Win7 OS unless Win10 turns out to be exceptional.
I've got a HTC One m8 with Android 4.4.4.
So far best I've done was 40 hours between charges from 100% to 15% before I plugged it in for juice.
I have yet to charge mid day and I've been using it for a month.
That's on stock Sense, not rooted, none of the carrier bloat removed that oh so loves to kill battery life.
Android isn't perfect but it's come a long way.
So far best I've done was 40 hours between charges from 100% to 15% before I plugged it in for juice.
I have yet to charge mid day and I've been using it for a month.
That's on stock Sense, not rooted, none of the carrier bloat removed that oh so loves to kill battery life.
Android isn't perfect but it's come a long way.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
I just bought a $100 (I got it for $96.51 including taxes and free shipping) HP Stream 7 tablet running Windows 8.1 32 bit Core. The thing only has 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of on device storage (it can take up to a 32 GB micro SD card). I have Office 365 installed, a few other smaller desktop apps, around 3 dozen modern apps and have 11 GB free out of 24 available, there's a 5 GB recovery partition that can be copied off to free up that space.
Not at all a speedster and there's definitely lag in when running much and switching between tasks, but it's still plenty usable. Just for fun I tried out gdonovan's burning MP3s to CD scenario with it by plugging in a powered USB CD burner and it worked perfectly like my desktop. From a $100 device with less hardware than a higher end smartphone. Yeah, really bloated.
Windows XP's October market share tumble was overstated, NetApplications admits
NETAPPLICATIONS HAS ADMITTED that the 6.69 percent drop in Windows XP's market share it recorded for October was overstated, suggesting that Windows 8 isn't doing as well as first thought.
The bean counters at NetApplications revealed earlier this week that Windows XP's global market share took a 6.69 percent plunge during October, which should have raised alarm bells given that this is almost as much as XP's share dropped over the whole of the previous 12 months.
This, according to the figures, meant that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 enjoyed a combined 4.54 percent surge during the month.
However, NetApplications admitted on Thursday that things didn't swing in Microsoft's favour quite as much as it first thought, owing to the omission of many sites in China that the firm usually monitors to determine these figures.
The firm said on its website: "NetMarketShare has recently shown a large drop in Windows XP share from September to October.
"This drop was primarily caused by a major change in the network of sites we have in China. A group of large Chinese publishers with a very large number of visitors per day had audiences heavily skewed towards Windows XP (nearly 100 percent XP).
"In researching the nature of the sites, we determined they were not appropriate for our network.
"We removed those publishers ourselves, which caused the shift since Chinese traffic is weighted higher due to lower coverage. The current data set is more accurate than in the past due to this."
NetApplications rival StatCounter perhaps paints a more accurate picture of Microsoft's operating system, revealing that Windows XP's market share fell from 14.4 percent to 13.22 percent in October.
NETAPPLICATIONS HAS ADMITTED that the 6.69 percent drop in Windows XP's market share it recorded for October was overstated, suggesting that Windows 8 isn't doing as well as first thought.
The bean counters at NetApplications revealed earlier this week that Windows XP's global market share took a 6.69 percent plunge during October, which should have raised alarm bells given that this is almost as much as XP's share dropped over the whole of the previous 12 months.
This, according to the figures, meant that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 enjoyed a combined 4.54 percent surge during the month.
However, NetApplications admitted on Thursday that things didn't swing in Microsoft's favour quite as much as it first thought, owing to the omission of many sites in China that the firm usually monitors to determine these figures.
The firm said on its website: "NetMarketShare has recently shown a large drop in Windows XP share from September to October.
"This drop was primarily caused by a major change in the network of sites we have in China. A group of large Chinese publishers with a very large number of visitors per day had audiences heavily skewed towards Windows XP (nearly 100 percent XP).
"In researching the nature of the sites, we determined they were not appropriate for our network.
"We removed those publishers ourselves, which caused the shift since Chinese traffic is weighted higher due to lower coverage. The current data set is more accurate than in the past due to this."
NetApplications rival StatCounter perhaps paints a more accurate picture of Microsoft's operating system, revealing that Windows XP's market share fell from 14.4 percent to 13.22 percent in October.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
Found it interesting that this was being reported when all along StatCounter had always forever reported negative growth in XP and never reported negative growth in 8.x. and indeed both StatCounter and NetApplications report a similar number for 8.x for October though StatCounter still reports a significantly lower number for XP.
It's just a bunch of jockeying by whomever. In the months that StatCounter showed growth in 8.x but NetApplications reported stalling or contraction, no one ever questioned it. Bottom line, 8.x was probably always growing and that growth is now accelerating for the simple fact that Windows is now free on some incredibly cheap and decent machines. Of course there will be debate over the fact that a current version of Windows is being given away, even by those that have long lambasted Microsoft for charging for its desktop OS.
Whatever the situation may be, Microsoft financials are as good as ever, it's stock price is only 10% off its all time high, it has a consensus AAA credit rating all while practically giving away its core products in Windows and Office to consumers. You can love or hate Microsoft but it works in mysterious ways. It's stock has doubled since Windows 8 was introduced in 2012. Who the hell would have predicted that given the hatred of 8?
rudy
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2004
- Messages
- 8,704
So basically what they are saying is that if you take out the 98% pirated copies of windows XP in China windows 8 is doing well in places that actually matter to the bottom line of MS as they actually pay for software. That would more mirror the numbers that a place like steam puts out.
CreepyUncleGoogle
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 6,871
It's an experience identical to having a Windows 8 desktop/laptop computer so you have full access to do whatever you wanna to the OS.
SlipperyPete
Gawd
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2004
- Messages
- 541
I agree 100%. XP was the high water mark.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
It's interesting that many think this but XP had a rough few years after it launched with security issues that took nearly three years to get ironed out with XP Service Pack 2. Still XP's security model had problems and cleaning that up further with Vista is what led to a of the app compatibility issues between XP and Vista.
chaikovski2002
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2003
- Messages
- 2,247
I would take XP over windows 8 any day!
CreepyUncleGoogle
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 6,871
Every OS has security flaws and those kinds of problems aren't really as persistent or ever-present for the user who is happily apathetic or whatever to them most of the time. On the other hand, user interface mess ups are very visibily obvious and are instant run away screaming kinds of things. So yeah, XP was broken, but not in the same way as 8.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
I agree. But the degree to which 8 is broken is extremely subjective and dependent on the hardware it's being used and how. There's a lot of hate over 8's UI from keyboard and mouse users but not nearly as much when used on tablets. Of course desktop and keyboard and mouse users are the core Windows crowd which it why the issue has been so heated.
I think part of the reason between the alternation perception of "Good Windows release, bad Windows release" is that the good ones aren't as great as all that and the bad ones aren't as bad as all that. The UI in 8.1 Update is considerably better for keyboard and mouse users than 8 RTM and plenty of people everyday are using just fine with keyboards and mice. 10 will fix the underlying issues of full screen modern UI elements while preserving the essence of Windows 8, 10 will still be a hybrid and have touch apps that run on desktops. But it will work better with keyboards and mice and the touch side will probably get improving as well. And then many will say that 10 is what 8 should have been, like many said 7 is what Vista has been.
Ur_Mom
Fully [H]
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 20,690
Microsoft people themselves will say that on a tablet - people love Windows 8. On a desktop with non-touch - people hate it. That's why Windows 10 beta is focused on the new start menu and not a whole lot else. To show people that there is now an interface for both touch and non-touch. Someone did bring up a good point with MS - what about those of us that enjoy the Start Screen and are used to it? It'll still be an option, as well as Continuum. In the current betas, the touch aspect is "broken" and will be improved a lot. Better than it was in Windows 8.1.
Windows 8 was pretty damn bad (at least the reception from the public), so Sinofski is considered a bad word on campus.
No one denies that, even those that worked on it. Windows 10 is doing a lot of stuff that Windows 8 did (and like Windows 7 and Vista - 7 takes the credit for it, even though that feature was introduced in Vista). But, now there is that new app store and apps will work on the desktop. So, you have a much larger audience. 8 introduced the Windows Store and Modern apps. 10 puts them on the desktop. Now, your audience is much, much larger. I seriously think 10 is going to break some records. A lot of great stuff coming down the pipeline with it, marketing is going to be amazing, and the OS is already great with ~10% of the features added.
We did ask "When will it be feature complete so we can start writing a book on it?". The answer was "When it's RTM.". So, it will be hard to write a book, but new features are being integrated into the preview releases up until then.
CreepyUncleGoogle
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 6,871
I agree that 8.1 is a lot more usable for non-screen fondling types and that opinions vary widely among people and sorta follow the hardware being used (well, I don't know that for certain because I haven't got like a survey or anything and I've met tablet Windows 8/8.1 people that don't like the UI even on a touchings and feelings kinda computer). I don't think the average person has much concept of or is at all influenced by the good release following bad release thing and that they judge their like or dislike based on merit rather than history.
The important part though, is that Windows 8 computers are not any more secure in relative terms than Windows XP was when it was new. After all XP was supposedly good because it was tons more secure than NT4 or 2000 and that was the reason to buy it and put up with what everyone insisted was a Playskool UI. (I mean, I wasn't really there for that round, I just have heard it from enough people to know. XP was released like nine years before I was born.)
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
It becomes a mob mentality thing. Windows is still a huge tech brand and even non-technical folks hear things from others about it. My brother-in-law bought a new PC a few months back, total non-tech guy, and he told me that someone told him that 8 sucked and to get a PC with 7 on it. And there's no doubt that this has happened a lot with.
Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative started by Bill Gates in early 2002 when he shutdown all development for a while came to be in large part because of series of devastating and humiliating attacks on the brand new Windows XP. Windows 8 had tons of launch issues but nothing like this.
CreepyUncleGoogle
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 6,871
It was universally bashed by reviewers, tech people, businesses, and even Microsoft admits it made a few mistakes (not just through updates that addressed problems, but pretty much in public and moreso recently) so the advice your brother-in-law was getting really a bad thing. Not all of those opinions were formed dependently based on the opinions of others and little of it had anything to do with measuring good and bad releases. The Good/Bad thing resulted from observations about Windows 8 and not in lieu of Windows 8's UI becoming public knowledge.
Which didn't have a lot to do with the selling points and the advertising to get people to buy something. Pretty much every release of Windows has claimed "Moar Secure!" as a selling feature and just like the bullet point list thing-y on a sticker stuck to a trash can that espouses the awesome swinging lid and the easy-to-carry handles, people ignore it as noise. Buying decisions are based less on claims or even the reality of an OS's security features and a lot more on look and feel stuff.
Ur_Mom
Fully [H]
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 20,690
The "I heard Windows 8 was worse..." really hurt them. But, IT pro's generally try it out for themselves. Even among them, it was pretty bad.
You can please some of the people all the time... Never going to get 100% of people liking it. Ever. Windows 8 just had a lower percent that did like it. Sadly, the OS itself isn't bad, not at all. It's the modern UI and the lack of customer options. Microsoft is changing that. They are taking as much customer feedback (via feedback tool, User Voice, telemetry, etc.) and improving the product. I saw first hand a few things that will be added. They showed where they got the idea - someone mentioned it on the Windows Community forum. Windows 8 was very closed. This is what they are doing, no input. Windows 10 is a huge collaboration between users, beta testers and the Windows team. They are listening to users. So, if you don't like something or find something is missing - use the feedback tool. Use the User Voice. Use the Community forums. They do listen and they do react to those suggestions.
CreepyUncleGoogle
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 6,871
Oh Windows 8 below the UI stuff is an improvement, but I think probably not as big as people might think because the idea of "improved internals" is based very, very heavily on how fast a computer goes from turned off to ready to use which is also a really silly metric. There's more, a lot more, than that behind the scenes, but the look and feel judgements made by people were done a lot of times by stopwatch boot up measurements.
I've noticed that Microsoft is getting a lot more interactive and involved. They should since profits depend on it. It's still a good thing though to take feedback. The one thing I think they're really not listening to is independent operation and offline/local storage friendliness. Taking suggestions to that point really would hurt their revenue stream that they envision will be based on subscriber fees so cloud-enabled and cloud-connected is the way things are gonna probably end up with Windows 10 and future Office suites. It doesn't matter to me much because I'm sooooo almost at the point where I don't need MS Office which also makes Windows not necessary so I can just live all happy and disconnected in Linux-land with LibreOffice or Abiword.
Ur_Mom
Fully [H]
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 20,690
Yes, the dreaded Microsoft Account requirement. You can opt out in Win8.1 (hard to find, though). Not sure with Windows 10. ADFS will be a big part of it, I'm sure, for the enterprise side (so, it'll be your AD account connected rather than your MS account). A lot of people want just a simple OS with no cloud features.
CreepyUncleGoogle
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 6,871
It really is buried in there someplace. I remember when I did the 8 to 8.1 upgrade, I had to go through account setup again and it was easier to opt out in 8. I don't really remember what it was I did to get out of setting up a Microsoft Account. I even use Outlook.com for my not spam e-mail, but I think the cloud stuff will be less of a grumbling point for people who see 10 for the first time than the UI was for people seeing 8 so it'll not be a problem for Microsoft to require it moving forward.