Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8 • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#61

Post by astral303 » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 4:23 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #55

astral303 wrote: post #54

I hear no end of non-techie people cursing Windows 8 and its metro interface. As a latest example, one of my friends said he wanted to buy a new Windows laptop, but walked out of the store after being really confused using Windows 8 (quote was: "I don't know how I will be able to get work done in this."). Personally, just the sheer learning curve to help someone set up a new Windows 8 laptop was ridiculous. I had to…

How was it for a techie mindset? Hit windows key, type in 'environment'. Where the hell is change environment variables? A lot of the really important techie menus items are missing from Windows 8, it's actually pretty useless as a techie interface without modding vanilla, which I'm not a fan of because I use so many different machines. Also try using server 2012 with a remote desktop connection. Nightmare. NB: This…

You're right, it sucks for a techie too. I'm just surprised at all the "Windows 8 ain't so bad" comments around here, so I assumed I might be missing something.

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#62

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

robert_tweed wrote: post #60

sliverstorm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major new releases are hardly inappropriate. There's still a lot of change in computers. Recall XP had no wireless support until SP2, and it hasn't been until Win7 or so that SSD's have been handled optimally (TRIM and so forth)

There really haven't been many major changes to the x86 architecture since the 386, with the notable exception of 64-bit recently. Pretty much everything else should be handled with driver updates or at worst a service pack. I wouldn't even object to paying for those kinds of upgrades, if I needed them, if I could take them without getting a bunch of unwanted tinkering with the UI and toolset. I eventually gave up on…

There really haven't been many major changes to the x86 architecture since the 386

CPU architecture is hardly all that matters to the core OS

Pretty much everything else should be handled with driver updates or at worst a service pack.

Driver updates work fine for adding support for a new model of graphics card, but when you introduce a whole new kind of device (e.g. WiFi, SSD) the implications reach into the OS itself. They managed WiFi in a service pack for XP, but it was both a pretty unprecedented level of change for a service pack, and always felt kind of tacked-on.

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#63

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 4:28 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #55

astral303 wrote: post #54

I hear no end of non-techie people cursing Windows 8 and its metro interface. As a latest example, one of my friends said he wanted to buy a new Windows laptop, but walked out of the store after being really confused using Windows 8 (quote was: "I don't know how I will be able to get work done in this."). Personally, just the sheer learning curve to help someone set up a new Windows 8 laptop was ridiculous. I had to…

How was it for a techie mindset? Hit windows key, type in 'environment'. Where the hell is change environment variables? A lot of the really important techie menus items are missing from Windows 8, it's actually pretty useless as a techie interface without modding vanilla, which I'm not a fan of because I use so many different machines. Also try using server 2012 with a remote desktop connection. Nightmare. NB: This…

FWIW typing "environment" brings up two options; change user, and change system environment variables. This is Win8.1

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#64

Post by dkuntz2 » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 5:07 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #58

rthomas6 wrote: post #43

If Microsoft follows their old pattern of consumer OSes, Windows 9 will be fantastic: * 95: Dud * 98: Great * Me: Dud * XP: Great * Vista: Dud * 7: Great * 8: Dud

A bit like Star Trek films.

Some of the Star Trek films... Insurrection (9) was better than Nemesis (10) in my opinion.

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#65

Post by Systemic33 » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 5:57 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #46

Systemic33 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see your points, but this is EXACTLY how Nokia and RIM went down the drain. They both thought that as long as we just churn out new iterations of the same thing, it'll keep people on. Look how that went...

The difference is that there were plenty of competitors whose commodity products were overtaking even the premium, business-friendly features in BlackBerry gear, just as generic PCs eventually made dedicated high-end workstations obsolete. Right now, the only credible competitor to Windows for a user-facing business PC operating system is OS X, and even then a lot more of the serious business software is better on Wi…

Apple wasn't a competitior to anyone in the phone industry, right until they made the iPhone and blew everyone out of the water. My point still stands.

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#66

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 6:24 PM UTC

robert_tweed wrote: post #60

sliverstorm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major new releases are hardly inappropriate. There's still a lot of change in computers. Recall XP had no wireless support until SP2, and it hasn't been until Win7 or so that SSD's have been handled optimally (TRIM and so forth)

There really haven't been many major changes to the x86 architecture since the 386, with the notable exception of 64-bit recently. Pretty much everything else should be handled with driver updates or at worst a service pack. I wouldn't even object to paying for those kinds of upgrades, if I needed them, if I could take them without getting a bunch of unwanted tinkering with the UI and toolset. I eventually gave up on…

Oh, I forgot to mention threading in my other comment. Windows 7 was the first time the OS seemed to do a good job of both scheduling userspace AND core OS functions across N cores. I'm guessing that would be outside of the scope of a service pack.

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#67

Post by Silhouette » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 6:29 PM UTC

Systemic33 wrote: post #65

Silhouette wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that there were plenty of competitors whose commodity products were overtaking even the premium, business-friendly features in BlackBerry gear, just as generic PCs eventually made dedicated high-end workstations obsolete. Right now, the only credible competitor to Windows for a user-facing business PC operating system is OS X, and even then a lot more of the serious business software is better on Wi…

Apple wasn't a competitior to anyone in the phone industry, right until they made the iPhone and blew everyone out of the water. My point still stands.

Apple didn't blow BlackBerry out of the water overnight, though. The BB phones available around the time the original iPhone hit the market were competitive. The brand was strong. They had technical innovations like a high resolution, full colour display several years before Retina iPhones arrived.

Then they dropped the ball even harder than Microsoft when it came to the mobile Internet, persisting with a proprietary browser with insufficient market share and other non-standard tools for far too long. They also released some ill-timed new products that fell behind the curve, such as the Torch that still had a "normal" resolution display when everyone else was doubling up.

In short, it wasn't BB continuing to churn out the same kind of products that led to their downfall because the iPhone arrived, it was them falling behind the curve and putting out inferior products for several years even after the competition had arrived and started to become established.

Right now, there is no iPhone-level disruption in the end user PC operating system market, but if someone started the ball rolling this year and made their entrance to compete with Windows 9, they could be a serious competitor by the following generation if Windows 9 chokes the way Vista and Windows 8 did.

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#68

Post by WalterSear » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 6:33 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #32

drcongo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 8.2 Professional™ Media™ Home™ Premium™ Edition™ Enterprise™ Ultimate™

I prefer Windows_8_2_n0CD_XcRaCkEdX

At least with the pirated version you know there was >some< form of quality control.

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#69

Post by WalterSear » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 6:34 PM UTC

programminggeek wrote: post #31

Microsoft is in an unlucky spot. They sell to businesses and are trying to transition to something closer to Apple's business model, which is kind of a tricky proposition. Consumer and business have totally different buying cycles and expectations. Also, Apple spent like a decade rebuilding their business to make it work before the iPhone happened. It started with the iMac, then iPod, then iPhone, then iPad, but with…

It's not unlucky if you put yourself there.

Re: Windows 9 to be unveiled in April, distances itself from Windows 8

#70

Post by WalterSear » Mon, Jan 13, 2014, 6:35 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #48

rthomas6 wrote: post #43

If Microsoft follows their old pattern of consumer OSes, Windows 9 will be fantastic: * 95: Dud * 98: Great * Me: Dud * XP: Great * Vista: Dud * 7: Great * 8: Dud

Was 95 a dud? That's not how I remember it, although it was a huge change from 3.x. You also miss Windows 2000 which was a very good OS though not really sold to consumers.

Drivers were a nightmare for a while, IIRC.