Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#21

Post by archangel_one » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

xpose2000 wrote: post #6

I run window 8 and its a solid upgrade. It feels faster and has incremental updates to various parts of the OS. (Native mounting of ISOs was a nice surprise) Only down side? The lack of start menu. But since that can be easily fixed with Start8 (Google it), then there is no reason to not upgrade. If you run windows 7, then stop wasting time and upgrade to 8.

I have Windows 7 on my desktop (for gaming, needless to say) and it works fine - so I don't see why I should spend £25 on it (that's six pints of beer - or 12 if I want a physical disc) for a nebulous vague claim of "it feels faster" and native ISO mounting that I'll never use (native ISO ripping would be mildly helpful, but it's still not that big a pain point). And no, I don't want to arse about googling for 3rd-party apps to restore functionality that worked fine in the old version.

My guess is this kind of sentiment explains the slow sales - Windows 7 is good enough for almost everyone, and Microsoft don't have a great brand in this area given Vista (and ME), and many underwhelming Office updates.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#22

Post by ctdonath » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 5:42 PM UTC

RyanZAG wrote: post #17

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 selli…

Seems they're making Kodak's mistake: thinking bulk-buying resellers are the customers.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#23

Post by dillona » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 5:54 PM UTC

archangel_one wrote: post #21

xpose2000 wrote: post #6

I run window 8 and its a solid upgrade. It feels faster and has incremental updates to various parts of the OS. (Native mounting of ISOs was a nice surprise) Only down side? The lack of start menu. But since that can be easily fixed with Start8 (Google it), then there is no reason to not upgrade. If you run windows 7, then stop wasting time and upgrade to 8.

I have Windows 7 on my desktop (for gaming, needless to say) and it works fine - so I don't see why I should spend £25 on it (that's six pints of beer - or 12 if I want a physical disc) for a nebulous vague claim of "it feels faster" and native ISO mounting that I'll never use (native ISO ripping would be mildly helpful, but it's still not that big a pain point). And no, I don't want to arse about googling for 3rd-pa…

The security improvements alone are easily worth the money in my opinion.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#24

Post by pixl97 » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 5:56 PM UTC

xpose2000 wrote: post #6

I run window 8 and its a solid upgrade. It feels faster and has incremental updates to various parts of the OS. (Native mounting of ISOs was a nice surprise) Only down side? The lack of start menu. But since that can be easily fixed with Start8 (Google it), then there is no reason to not upgrade. If you run windows 7, then stop wasting time and upgrade to 8.

If you run windows 7, then stop wasting time and upgrade to 8.

If you run 7, stay on 7.

If you're getting a new computer, don't fear 8, though it will take a little time getting used to.

If you have a corporate office and will be replacing 500 pc's, you better do some tests with your users before you even think about 8.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#25

Post by etanz » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 5:56 PM UTC

Does anyone else find it problematic that the data in the graph only reflects Windows 8 usage until December 22nd? It could completely be missing out on the post Christmas activations.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#26

Post by rcthompson » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

moskie wrote: post #11

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…

Why does my PC need a touch screen? I've never been using a desktop or laptop computer and thought "If only this had a touch screen, my task would be so much easier."

For that matter, same question with s/a touch screen/Windows 8/g. Seriously, I haven't seen any commercial that tells me what Windows 8 will actually do for me. Live tiles and "doodle passwords" are nifty, but I'm not going to drop several hundred dollars for these.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#27

Post by EwanG » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 5:59 PM UTC

My personal favorite Windows 8 feature - plug in a mouse, but not a keyboard. Go to a text field. Windows 8 figures that if you have a mouse you "must" have a keyboard even though it can plainly see you don't. So the on-screen keyboard doesn't come up. Even if you load it in the desktop pane, it won't be available in other panes (like the Store).

The solution is to unplug the mouse, and then the keyboard shows up. The level of "broken" this represents in not thoroughly thinking through the change in their UI probably explains the level of resistance to the product. I still run it on all my machines because most of what I do I can do inside the Desktop pane (even on my Win 8 tablet). I can only imagine how painful life would be to an RT user...

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#28

Post by w1ntermute » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 6:04 PM UTC

archangel_one wrote: post #21

xpose2000 wrote: post #6

I run window 8 and its a solid upgrade. It feels faster and has incremental updates to various parts of the OS. (Native mounting of ISOs was a nice surprise) Only down side? The lack of start menu. But since that can be easily fixed with Start8 (Google it), then there is no reason to not upgrade. If you run windows 7, then stop wasting time and upgrade to 8.

I have Windows 7 on my desktop (for gaming, needless to say) and it works fine - so I don't see why I should spend £25 on it (that's six pints of beer - or 12 if I want a physical disc) for a nebulous vague claim of "it feels faster" and native ISO mounting that I'll never use (native ISO ripping would be mildly helpful, but it's still not that big a pain point). And no, I don't want to arse about googling for 3rd-pa…

Improved responsiveness with Windows 8 is not a "nebulous vague claim", it's well documented online.

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#29

Post by synx508 » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 6:05 PM UTC

moskie wrote: post #11

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…

I bought my Windows 8 machine with the assumption that, as a touch device, it would give me a true "Windows 8 Experience". I can summarise this experience with the word "atrocious". This is a pity, because the device itself, an Asus S200E, is rather wonderful and extremely good value. I think Microsoft needed to do a lot more testing, perhaps UAT, Windows 8 feels like a pre-alpha product in many places. I'm getting to the point where I'm going to have to write some blog posts or something because it is quite unbelievably bad in certain areas. I actually quite like it, but it could be that I'm just feeling very sorry for it. You have to feel a certain amount of pity for a thing that regularly claims to be importing 342 of 200 pictures, or has an app that encourages me to launch the actual app I'm running in order to fix a problem with the app I'm running. I could go on…

Re: Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista

#30

Post by therobot24 » Tue, Jan 01, 2013, 6:06 PM UTC

EwanG wrote: post #27

My personal favorite Windows 8 feature - plug in a mouse, but not a keyboard. Go to a text field. Windows 8 figures that if you have a mouse you "must" have a keyboard even though it can plainly see you don't. So the on-screen keyboard doesn't come up. Even if you load it in the desktop pane, it won't be available in other panes (like the Store). The solution is to unplug the mouse, and then the keyboard shows up. Th…

RT user checking in - as long as remote desktop works i'm good (though i'm connecting to a win 8 pc).

Why did i buy a 499$ remote desktop machine? Cause i don't need to carry computing power with me, and the snap in keyboard + usb port (charge my phone/plug in a mouse) + expandable memory is exactly what i need.