Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it will begin rolling out Windows 8.1 to the general public on Oct. 18. Win 8.1 will be available as a free update for Windows 8 users through the Windows Store, and it will also be available at retail outlets and on new devices running the Windows OS. Windows 8 supports both consumer and business needs, and “the updates coming in Windows 8.1 will further serve the needs of business customers,” Microsoft said in an email from PR rep Diana Cansino.
Dead
Man
Walking.
No one wants Win8, and much more importantly, no one CARES.
Windows 8 and 8.1 are primed to follow the Kin and the Surface tablets down the toilet of technology history, likely dragging XBox and Ballmer down behind them. Good comments in the article; it's as if MS is actively TRYING to force customers away.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be pushing that many new ones towards Linux, just towards Android and Apple and even "Chrome".
Actually just like Vista its a boon to us small shop owners as we can get paid quite well to make Metro go away, in fact this is one advantage Win 8.x has over Vista in that I can make Win 8 into Win 7 with an hour or two with the right tweaks (no it takes more than just replacing the shell with Classic Shell, you have to do some registry editing and driver hacking to keep the charms and junk from popping up) so they don't have to go out and buy a new OS.
But as someone who has been building, servicing, and selling PCs since the days of The Shat selling VIC 20s with his TJ Hooker hair I can say I have NEVER seen an OS that is a big of a mess as Win 8.x, never. I learned Android in less than 30 minutes, about the same for OSX, I have even mastered some of the funkier Linux DEs and know my way around a CLI but Win 8 is the ONLY OS that has ever made me so mad I actually flipped off the laptop in frustration.
The problem is its obviously a TOUCH ONLY OS and since most laptops are NOT TOUCH and touch laptops just aren't selling MSFT has tried to make the touchpad into a touch UI and it just doesn't work. A touchscreen tells the OS EXACTLY where you are and what you are doing whereas a touchpad like a mouse is all relative movement and it doesn't take too many charms bar pop up and swipe gestures when they are trying to just scroll a web page for people to start cursing in frustration.
So while its great for us small shop guys I'd say if MSFT doesn't change course when Win 7 goes EOL so too will that be the EOL of the Windows desktop as folks HATE the Metro UI and its NEVER gonna replace an actual OS built for a laptop/desktop.
Something must be amiss because I'm agreeing with you. ;)
Only notes I would add are:
a. That is hardly "hair".
b. If it takes 2 hours to fully banish Metro then perhaps the customer might as well have paid for a Win7 retail pack instead. (Also still pretty funny to me that Win8 cost 40 bucks when released but Win7 still costs... holy crap, $200 at NewEgg for Home Premium retail?)
c. Yes I realize you're probably doing some other value-add things like antimalware and decrapification.
Oh, also, their new idea is to push the hardware makers to go exclusively touchscreen laptops to make Win8 bearable... but soon they will have so little sway it will hardly matter. I wonder if everyone will be running Chrome on their laptops in a few years, though that's hardly a real OS (Linux running the Chrome browser).
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Microsoft Sets Oct. 18 Arrival Date for Spiffed-Up Windows 8.1
Posted by: Richard Adhikari August 14, 2013 02:58 PMMicrosoft on Wednesday announced that it will begin rolling out Windows 8.1 to the general public on Oct. 18. Win 8.1 will be available as a free update for Windows 8 users through the Windows Store, and it will also be available at retail outlets and on new devices running the Windows OS. Windows 8 supports both consumer and business needs, and “the updates coming in Windows 8.1 will further serve the needs of business customers,” Microsoft said in an email from PR rep Diana Cansino.
Man
Walking.
No one wants Win8, and much more importantly, no one CARES.
Windows 8 and 8.1 are primed to follow the Kin and the Surface tablets down the toilet of technology history, likely dragging XBox and Ballmer down behind them. Good comments in the article; it's as if MS is actively TRYING to force customers away.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be pushing that many new ones towards Linux, just towards Android and Apple and even "Chrome".
But as someone who has been building, servicing, and selling PCs since the days of The Shat selling VIC 20s with his TJ Hooker hair I can say I have NEVER seen an OS that is a big of a mess as Win 8.x, never. I learned Android in less than 30 minutes, about the same for OSX, I have even mastered some of the funkier Linux DEs and know my way around a CLI but Win 8 is the ONLY OS that has ever made me so mad I actually flipped off the laptop in frustration.
The problem is its obviously a TOUCH ONLY OS and since most laptops are NOT TOUCH and touch laptops just aren't selling MSFT has tried to make the touchpad into a touch UI and it just doesn't work. A touchscreen tells the OS EXACTLY where you are and what you are doing whereas a touchpad like a mouse is all relative movement and it doesn't take too many charms bar pop up and swipe gestures when they are trying to just scroll a web page for people to start cursing in frustration.
So while its great for us small shop guys I'd say if MSFT doesn't change course when Win 7 goes EOL so too will that be the EOL of the Windows desktop as folks HATE the Metro UI and its NEVER gonna replace an actual OS built for a laptop/desktop.
Only notes I would add are:
a. That is hardly "hair".
b. If it takes 2 hours to fully banish Metro then perhaps the customer might as well have paid for a Win7 retail pack instead. (Also still pretty funny to me that Win8 cost 40 bucks when released but Win7 still costs... holy crap, $200 at NewEgg for Home Premium retail?)
c. Yes I realize you're probably doing some other value-add things like antimalware and decrapification.