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Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

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Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#11

Post by moskie »

Isn't part of the problem that the hardware market hasn't yet put out a good selection of touchscreen devices (tablets, laptops, monitors) to take advantage of Windows 8's core upgrades/features yet?

I was in Fry's Electronics last week, went to the laptop section, and couldn't find any touchscreen Windows devices in their sea of laptops they had on display. I had to ask a salesman, and he had to point out to me the one they had on display.

I imagine that once touchscreen devices and monitors become the standard, people will be more inclined to go with Windows 8, so I haven't written off its success yet.

Or, I guess the pessimistic flip-side to that is that the market has spoken, and there isn't a strong demand for such devices running Windows 8?

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#12

Post by marcosdumay »

kabdib wrote: post #4

MS should seriously consider releasing a patch that makes Win8 look like Win7 on desktops (shouldn't be very hard). Win8 has a fair number of improvements under the hood. My guess is that someone in the Windows org has this working. (I won't get into the quality of the Win8 UI, since I have not used it yet. Maybe it's the bee's knees and I'm just believing all the anti-hype).

> shouldn't be very hard

Somebody already published one in SourceForge. I realy doubt MS can't do that.

But then, MS's strategy is to risk their PC dominance to make inroads at portables. Such a patch would antagonize their (failing) marketing efforts.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#13

Post by dchest »

joenathan wrote: post #9

I think the problem that exist is that computers have reached the level of being good enough to not replace or upgrade. If you had a PC with a Pentium 4 and 256 or 512 MB of RAM you would be in serious pain trying to run a modern web browser or do much of anything, but a Core2Duo with 4GB of RAM is more than enough for 90% of people out there. There is no longer a compelling reason to upgrade when your computer is no…

Windows 7, released in 2009, was a success compared to Vista, and our computers are not that much different inside from what they were then.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#14

Post by w1ntermute »

marcosdumay wrote: post #12
kabdib wrote: post #4

MS should seriously consider releasing a patch that makes Win8 look like Win7 on desktops (shouldn't be very hard). Win8 has a fair number of improvements under the hood. My guess is that someone in the Windows org has this working. (I won't get into the quality of the Win8 UI, since I have not used it yet. Maybe it's the bee's knees and I'm just believing all the anti-hype).

> shouldn't be very hard Somebody already published one in SourceForge. I realy doubt MS can't do that. But then, MS's strategy is to risk their PC dominance to make inroads at portables. Such a patch would antagonize their (failing) marketing efforts.

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

And another, proprietary option: http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#15

Post by marcosdumay »

dpearson wrote: post #7
dhughes wrote: post #3

Windows 8 is and I supposed designed for tablets but not specifically for tablets which is what I think is wrong, I'm sure everyone thinks that. I'm curious to see how many people got tablets over the holidays and if Windows 8 use increases some. Windows 8 is so different than the previous versions of Windows it's quite obvious people are out of their comfort zone. But I think it's good to see some attempts at change…

I don't think that the problem is figuring out Windows 8 (something that anyone could do given enough time), but, rather, the real problem is unwillingness to buy. Having heard from friends and the media that Windows 8 is radically different, any remaining interest is dissipated on sight of screenshots or a demo computer in-store. That said, my parents, when actually confronted with it, were fine; they weren't huge f…

My parents could use their new Win8 computer quite well. But then, after seeing lots of tutorials, trying things for a long time and exploring all the new interface, they asked "Can't you really put a start menu on that thing?"

It's not the end of the world. But it's not a good interface either.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#16

Post by joenathan »

dchest wrote: post #13
joenathan wrote: post #9

I think the problem that exist is that computers have reached the level of being good enough to not replace or upgrade. If you had a PC with a Pentium 4 and 256 or 512 MB of RAM you would be in serious pain trying to run a modern web browser or do much of anything, but a Core2Duo with 4GB of RAM is more than enough for 90% of people out there. There is no longer a compelling reason to upgrade when your computer is no…

Windows 7, released in 2009, was a success compared to Vista, and our computers are not that much different inside from what they were then.

Windows Vista is a special case, it took a lot of flack that Windows 7 would have taken if Vista had not came before it.

Windows Vista broke compatibility(for the better of security) by making it so applications could only write to the User lever directories and would need elevated permissions to make system wide changes, Windows Vista also brought the first major x64 push from Microsoft, which left people with many peripherals that wouldn't work because there weren't 64 bit drivers available. In the time from Vista to 7 applications where updated to follow proper programming guidelines and 64 bit drivers where released, Vista in essence took the blow so Windows 7 could be a success.

In my opinion Windows Vista also has some serious performance issues, for example its caching was way too aggressive and would eat up all available RAM and leave little to none for running programs(I got out of memory errors in Photoshop while Vista had 700+MB of RAM "cached").

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#17

Post by RyanZAG »

Microsoft have two main customers: OEMs that install Windows on their laptops and desktops, and enterprise who use the easy collaboration between Office and Windows Server based products to administer their businesses.

They are actively moving against one of their main customers (OEMs) by trying to directly compete with them on hardware. This is a business 101 blunder that comes from not understand what you are selling and why you are selling it.

Microsoft is losing the second main customer through deprecation of old assets (VB6 compatibility issues, etc), and by drastically changing their product so that expensive training and orientation is needed to transition users. In addition, the new OS does not even improve workflow for the main Windows user: an office drone updating Excel worksheets and using Outlook email. Microsoft is also losing their handle on the developer mindset as larger numbers of developers transition to Web/iOS/Android platforms for bread-and-butter applications.

This is a now classic case of a business losing track of their target market, and they will suffer deeply if they don't make rapid and enormous culture and product changes within the next 2-3 years.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#18

Post by wildc4rd11 »

A lot of organizations completed upgrading to win 7 (mostly from XP but some from Vista) two or three years ago. From a business perspective, i don't see why they would want to upgrade now given that win 7 does what they want and is pretty stable/efficient. This also applies to regular people who get their job done on win 7 and don't want to go through the hassle of upgrading. You could argue, that win 8 is not sexy enough that it would push people to upgrade, but I would say it's a timing issue combined with how win 7 is still going solid, so I won't necessary blame Windows 8 for the low numbers.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#19

Post by microtonal »

dhughes wrote: post #3

Windows 8 is and I supposed designed for tablets but not specifically for tablets which is what I think is wrong, I'm sure everyone thinks that. I'm curious to see how many people got tablets over the holidays and if Windows 8 use increases some. Windows 8 is so different than the previous versions of Windows it's quite obvious people are out of their comfort zone. But I think it's good to see some attempts at change…

I find it quite a leap there's no way my elderly relatives could figure it out, they have trouble even with Windows 7/Vista/XP.

Metro is actually pretty simple on a touch device. I've seen iOS users figuring out the interface in no time. I think Microsoft's real problem is that for most people tablets are a different device category than laptops or desktops, so the choice for Windows is not automatic. Evenmore, most people in the market probably played with friends' or family's iPads and are more likely to choose an iPad, or perhaps an Android device if they have an Android phone.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#20

Post by kmfrk »

I'm having a worse experience with Windows 8, than I had with Windows 7. My printer didn't work until a few days ago, when it started printing in the middle of the night - discreet driver update? - and my installation was suddenly deactivated, so now I get the most annoying activation prompt (which fails) constantly. Especially since it directs me to the tablet OS to do so.

It's also absurd, that it takes something like five seconds for a clicked link in MetroTwit to open in my desktop browser.

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