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Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#81

Post by Steko »

jagermo wrote: post #63
k3n wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sums up my experience with MS in general; conversations driven by marketing and nothing else. For many other tech companies it's a much lower marketing:info ratio. Google is fairly good about it, and Mozilla is pretty good, while Apple is just as bad as MS.

I think MS is as bad as Apple. They learned/copied a lot from Apple over the last year when it comes to marketing. Including the highly annoying "No comment".

Parent and grandparent claims look false. Apple generally doesn't make announcements unless they have a real demo, or often until the product is ready to go. What we're talking about here OTOH is Microsoft providing a product (update) announcement without much substantial, soemthing MS is well known for. The stark differences between their current approaches have been extensively documented, for example:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/922B4392-850C-4CA6-92...

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#82

Post by panacea »

rm999 wrote: post #9

I found this announcement frustrating to read because it contains little useful content. Almost all of it is about how supposedly awesome Windows 8 is and how well it's doing. The relevant part could have been summed up as: there's a free upgrade coming out sometime later this year called Windows 8.1.

The public relations drone(s) who wrote this and thought it would be a good way of announcing the point release is fucking terrible at their job.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#83

Post by wsc981 »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #69

Story seems to be getting flagged and is going down the front page. Looks like some HN folks with good karma can't stand a Microsoft story that is not super critical and bitching about them. Those stay on the front page for days. http://i.imgur.com/wFN21wY.png Even announcements are not spared. Can anyone who flagged this post care to tell us why? I suspect the answer is "lol M$'.

I didn't flag the link or anything (can't even flag if I wanted to, probably not enough 'karma'), but read the article and wondered why it was posted here at all. It pretty much told me nothing except that a Windows 8.1 was coming - doesn't even tell what features to expect.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#84

Post by randomfool »

rm999 wrote: post #9

I found this announcement frustrating to read because it contains little useful content. Almost all of it is about how supposedly awesome Windows 8 is and how well it's doing. The relevant part could have been summed up as: there's a free upgrade coming out sometime later this year called Windows 8.1.

Announced at some no-name conference which just happens to be the day before Google I/O. This is just a marketing attempt to get their name in the news when the wave of Google stuff comes out. They like to do this for Apple too, though I never quite understand the point.

Stay classy Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#85

Post by facorreia »

k3n wrote: post #46
rm999 wrote: post #9

I found this announcement frustrating to read because it contains little useful content. Almost all of it is about how supposedly awesome Windows 8 is and how well it's doing. The relevant part could have been summed up as: there's a free upgrade coming out sometime later this year called Windows 8.1.

This sums up my experience with MS in general; conversations driven by marketing and nothing else. For many other tech companies it's a much lower marketing:info ratio. Google is fairly good about it, and Mozilla is pretty good, while Apple is just as bad as MS.

Maybe you're talking to the wrong people at Microsoft. My conversations with MS are usually focused on architecture and how I can use their products to better solve my specific problems. Ask to talk to a developer evangelist for starters.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#86

Post by whacker »

conductor wrote: post #31

Does anybody know whether they are going to fix the INT_MIN / -1 bug in the kernel? This code below (compiled and linked with gdi32) crashes fully patched versions of Windows 7 and 8 (32 bit), I didn't try it with 64bit versions. #include #include int main() { HDC dc = CreateCompatibleDC (NULL); SetLayout (dc, LAYOUT_RTL); ScaleWindowExtEx (dc, INT_MIN, -1, 1, 1, NULL); }

why isn't this treated as a serious security issue?

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#87

Post by nivla »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #80
recoiledsnake wrote: post #69

Story seems to be getting flagged and is going down the front page. Looks like some HN folks with good karma can't stand a Microsoft story that is not super critical and bitching about them. Those stay on the front page for days. http://i.imgur.com/wFN21wY.png Even announcements are not spared. Can anyone who flagged this post care to tell us why? I suspect the answer is "lol M$'.

Are you speculating or do you know it's being flagged? An alternative could be that only people with low karma are voting it up which is what's keeping it from having more staying power.

Thats news to me. I din't know someone with a higher karma gets a better voting rank. Reminds me of what Digg wanted to achieve and it backfiring.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#88

Post by nivla »

redthrowaway wrote: post #51
tarr11 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify what you are saying here? That Metro is ugly? Or that it's only ugly on Big Monitors?

It's a touch-centric paradigm forced onto non-touch devices.

That brings up a good question. With newer laptops and monitors being touch, how long do we have left before touch display become the norm? Is Microsoft trying to have a solution before the problem?

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#89

Post by nivla »

rammark wrote: post #14

will be a free update to Windows 8 for consumers through the Windows Store This could be to get more people to link their Microsoft ID with their Windows user accounts so that they will be more likely to use the store in the future. The alternative would be to release it through Windows Update like every other Windows patch for the last decade+.

I miss the pre-iphone era where your devices din't require registration with the manufacture to be used/updated/upgraded. Sad to see even desktops and laptops moving towards that direction.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 8.1

#90

Post by jlgreco »

nivla wrote: post #88
redthrowaway wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a touch-centric paradigm forced onto non-touch devices.

That brings up a good question. With newer laptops and monitors being touch, how long do we have left before touch display become the norm? Is Microsoft trying to have a solution before the problem?

I have a laptop with a touch screen and even while using programs it conceivably makes sense in (read: not a webbrowser, terminal, text editor / word processor, video player....), I still don't use it. My hands are at rest near the clickpad so why would I?

As long as computers ship with good pointer devices, as far as I can tell there can be no problem to solve.

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