[Formfiller]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 14 March 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

It’s Time to Bring Back NT. Windows NT meant something. It still can ( Thurrott 2013-03-11 )

Paul "The Desktop Must Die" Thurrott in his trademark bipolar fashion is once again testing the waters of sanity, sticking his foot in and sloshing it around, but not yet ready to jump in. To be clear, he is using NT in the generic sense, not the specific enterprise server Windows 3 and mostly 4 versions that were quietly perfected behind the scenes while Win9x was in the consumer spotlight. Many of his commenters cannot quite understand his use of NT as a term for top shelf, practically bug free design of a pure operating system though, so he is forced to explain this over and over in the comments.

In some ways Paul has essentially come around to my own way of thinking now ( Post #1811 ) of the traditional delineation of Server, Client and Workstation. He must be beginning to realize that his many columns have had no influence turning us all into loyal mSheep and so he continues to offer modest half-hearted suggestions to turn around the ongoing Metro fiasco.

Predictably some of his commenters who are even bigger MicroZealots than he is, are irredeemably obstinate when they perceive back-peddaling that threatens their new toy ...

Well, as I said earlier, it's very obvious that Thurrott actually dislikes Windows 8 and changes direction abruptly when his bribes gets delivered.

This article is quite lol-worthy:

http://winsupersite....s-good-or-bad-0

Quote

That said, the Bloomberg report is mostly bad news. The publication cites analysts who expect Microsoft to sell only 600,000 tablets in the current quarter, down from a previous prediction of 1.4 million. (I assume that’s RT devices, however, given that Microsoft has already sold 400,000 Pro devices in just 30 days.) This while the larger tablet market is racing to heady sales.

If there’s any solace for Microsoft, it’s that traditional PC sales continue to dominate those of tablets and will do so for several years. And Windows’s market share of the combined PC/tablet market will continue for the foreseeable future: Using IDC numbers for both PCs and tablets, PC/device makers will ship a combined 320 million Windows-powered PCs and devices in 2013 compared with 93 million Android devices and 88 million iPads. By 2017, Windows unit sales are expected grow to about 380 million units, compared with about 161 million Android devices and 152 million iPads.

If PCs are still that important, why was it needed to taint them with W8? The irony-meter explodes here. PCs are suddenly Microsoft's saving grace? The very customers Microsoft openly despises nowadays?

Quote from comments:

Quote

Actually, Paul did imply that 1.1 million sales is not bad at all. What IS bad, however, is the fact that we are talking about 1.1 million out of a shipment of 1.9 million distributed to punters. That means 0.8 million rejects, which IS bad.

Ouch if true.. Remember all the rumors about high return rates?

This post has been edited by Formfiller: 16 March 2013 - 01:08 PM

[Formfiller]

Oh my God, comments from Thurrott:

http://winsupersite....e-bring-back-nt

Quote

Yawn. Yes, it is the future. Microsoft has been telling us that, not me.

What I'm saying is we live in the present. There are 1.3 billion PCs in use. And Metro is not suitable for any of them.

Thanks for trying to find some contradiction that doesn't exist.

Quote

Yep, made for the future. We live in the present. It's unclear how often I need to repeat that.

More to the point, when Windows 8 first shipped, there were no new devices on which to test it. I've now used many of them. And I prefer regular PCs. Not everyone will. But not everyone is a writer and needs that kind of thing. Cars didn't replace trucks. They live side by side.

I wonder when he will join this forum?

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Formfiller, on 16 March 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

Well, as I said earlier, it's very obvious that Thurrott actually dislikes Windows 8 and changes direction abruptly when his bribes gets delivered.

You also correctly predicted the ability of MetroTards to change stripes when convenient ( see Post #2188 ) ...

• CharlotteTheHarlot, on 07 March 2013 - 10:35 AM, said:

  More details about the new StarDock program mentioned by MagicAndre1981 above ( Post #2175 ). This thing solves one big problem, putting those stupid apps into proper windows where they should have been all along. If you read the comments you might be surprised that many of the MicroZealots and MetroTards are interested in this program! Actually, one of the posters here, FormFiller accurately predicted this phenomenon above when he said they 'will turn on a dime' in these situations despite their mountains of previous comments attacking these things. Good call. ( Check out the pair of uber-MetroTard comments at the Thurrott article by "ScubaDog2008" for a glimpse into the troubled mind of a Microsoft enabler who makes Thurrott look like an Android Droid! ).

[HalloweenDocument12]

Formfiller, on 16 March 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

To be clear, he is using NT in the generic sense, not the specific enterprise server Windows 3 and mostly 4 versions that were quietly perfected behind the scenes while Win9x was in the consumer spotlight. Many of his commenters cannot quite understand his use of NT as a term for top shelf, practically bug free design of a pure operating system though, so he is forced to explain this over and over in the comments.

What Microsoft has forgotten is that the kind of grassroots support seen during the NT 3.x-2000 days is basically required to move tech products at a large scale. The underground proliferation of NT helped immensely to legitimize XP. The release was botched both by OEMs, for underspeccing PCs, and Microsoft, for making XP take significantly more (at the time) resources than Windows 2000, which itself required significantly more resources than Windows 98. Still, nearly everyone in the tech sphere recognized NT as the future as far back as 1996 when NT 4 workstation was released. It was acknowledged that consumer hardware wasn't there yet and that NT lacked the hardware diversity of 9x but that in a few years 9x would be scrapped. Windows 2000 was supposed to be the unifying release but the 9x software compatibility guts weren't finished in time. In retrospect, this compatibility was rarely used. The end result was pushing back the 9x -> NT transition by about two years but it still happened because tech people "believed" in the product and recommended its use. The only people disagreeing were ABMers (anything but Microsoft) who were willfully ignorant about what NT offered. These people, to this day, insist that Windows is an application shell on top of a 16-bit DOS kernel.

This post has been edited by HalloweenDocument12: 16 March 2013 - 08:12 PM

[JorgeA]

HalloweenDocument12, on 16 March 2013 - 08:08 PM, said:

The only people disagreeing were ABMers (anything but Microsoft) who were willfully ignorant about what NT offered. These people, to this day, insist that Windows is an application shell on top of a 16-bit DOS kernel.

I come from the opposite angle, the end-user side. I have to admit, I was dubious about the whole Windows idea for a long time. My first introduction to an operating system was PC-DOS 1.1, and my first word processor was WordStar. Up until well into the '90s. I simply saw no need to switch to what I viewed as needless bloat on top of DOS. Extended memory? Expanded memory?? What's that??? GUI ewwey!! I didn't start using Windows (for Workgroups 3.11) until 1995, and even then it was only because my customers were asking for documents (1) via e-mail and (2) in .DOC (sometimes .RTF) format.

But let it not be said that I am unthinkingly resistant to change. My feelings toward Windows made an about-face almost as soon as I booted up Windows 98 (Standard Edition) for the first time. (Never did try Win95.) Now there we had real, undeniable improvement all around, both in esthetics and in functionality. (The Start Button and Start Menu, which made things so much clearer and easier, helped to turn me. )

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 16 March 2013 - 11:51 PM

[JorgeA]

Formfiller, on 16 March 2013 - 01:22 PM, said:

Oh my God, comments from Thurrott:

http://winsupersite....e-bring-back-nt

Here's one of the (IMO) best comments down below the main article:

Quote

But I disagree about the removal of aero. I liked aero. Authentic, energetic, reflective, and open is what A-E-R-O actually stands for. I know it's battery consuming, and MS seems to find it "distracting," but it is the style designed for the desktop. The metro style just doesn't feel right on the desktop. Even you, Paul Thurrot, had a mini freakout in the form of an article about the removal of aero. And on the systems that would use NT, they will be most likely plugged in, and aero will not be a problem.

In the meantime, I will use this: http://www.msfn.org/...5/page__st__540

Note the plug for MSFN!

Formfiller, on 16 March 2013 - 01:22 PM, said:

I wonder when he will join this forum?

LOL

He does seem to do 180-degree turns often and unpredictably.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

JorgeA, on 17 March 2013 - 12:53 AM, said:

Here's one of the (IMO) best comments down below the main article:
[...]

One of the commenters a few above that one is really stuck on stupid ...

Quote

if you go on statcounters website,and you check out operating system share,you would see that;

http://gs.statcounte...y-201202-201303

Windows 8 3.62%
ios 4.11%

Another month and windows 8 will overtake ios user base that was built in 5 years,from media players to phones to tablets.

So what this genius is doing is once again looking at Apple as his phantom competitor, no doubt green with envy. Nevermind the fact that Microsoft is simply milking its unethical monopoly of 90+% of 1.3 billion or more prisoners. Nevermind the fact that Windows 8 only actual competitor, Windows 7 has all but been removed from as an option while Vista, XP and everything else were long ago yanked from contention. iOS comes only installed on completely different devices that people must intentionally purchase. Like OS X it is not available as an option on anything for sale, let alone on anything where a customer can select it over Windows. Classic apples and oranges. But that is the Microsoft way.

It is exactly like someone at the Post Office crowing that they have a larger user base than UPS or Fedex.

Microsoft has played this game of lying about sales for so long that it is ingrained in the brains of these bozos. I have to hand it to them really. Like the pea shell game, they had almost everybody looking at Apple as an anti-trust foil while they built an iron-fisted OEM back-channel monopoly. This particular MicroZealot is but one example of it.

I wish that Apple would now let their Mac OS loose into the wild either free for a small fee as an alternative OS. All they need to do is undercut the Microsoft tax and OEMs will begin offering systems with an actual 2nd choice. That will teach Microsoft a lesson for making believe they are competing with Apple and nurturing this crowd of fanboys that eagerly swallow it all.

[JorgeA]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 17 March 2013 - 02:09 AM, said:

One of the commenters a few above that one is really stuck on stupid ...

Quote

if you go on statcounters website,and you check out operating system share,you would see that;

http://gs.statcounte...y-201202-201303

Windows 8 3.62%
ios 4.11%

Another month and windows 8 will overtake ios user base that was built in 5 years,from media players to phones to tablets.

So what this genius is doing is once again looking at Apple as his phantom competitor, no doubt green with envy. Nevermind the fact that Microsoft is simply milking its unethical monopoly of 90+% of 1.3 billion or more prisoners. Nevermind the fact that Windows 8 only actual competitor, Windows 7 has all but been removed from as an option while Vista, XP and everything else were long ago yanked from contention. iOS comes only installed on completely different devices that people must intentionally purchase. Like OS X it is not available as an option on anything for sale, let alone on anything where a customer can select it over Windows. Classic apples and oranges. But that is the Microsoft way.

It is exactly like someone at the Post Office crowing that they have a larger user base than UPS or Fedex.

Microsoft has played this game of lying about sales for so long that it is ingrained in the brains of these bozos. I have to hand it to them really. Like the pea shell game, they had almost everybody looking at Apple as an anti-trust foil while they built an iron-fisted OEM back-channel monopoly. This particular MicroZealot is but one example of it.

I wish that Apple would now let their Mac OS loose into the wild either free for a small fee as an alternative OS. All they need to do is undercut the Microsoft tax and OEMs will begin offering systems with an actual 2nd choice. That will teach Microsoft a lesson for making believe they are competing with Apple and nurturing this crowd of fanboys that eagerly swallow it all.

We may not have to think about that for very long, as Microsoft is flirting with failure in the phone and tablet markets where it did choose a straight-up competition with Apple. By sheer coincidence, my Internet travels last night led me to the following two-year-old quote from Ed Bott:

Quote

if Windows 8 flops on phones and tablets, Microsoft’s future is very dim indeed.

Once it becomes clear that customers aren't welcoming the Metro proposition, there will be nothing better for Microsoft to do than to cut their losses and start repairing their relationship with longtime loyal users by fixing Windows 8. The fix would of course entail offering choice -- choice in having a native Start Button/Menu, choice in booting straight to the Desktop, choice in having a full-blown Aero that makes use of the advanced graphical capabilities of most modern (and I don't mean Modern) computers. Metro could become another obscure Windows feature that's known by few and used by fewer, like Windows Media Center or the Management Console. (I say this as one who uses the former every day and who makes the statement to an audience that's well acquainted with the latter. But I think the point still stands. )

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 17 March 2013 - 09:09 AM

[JorgeA]

Excellent analysis over at Engadget:

Microsoft is singing the right tune with some wrong notes

Quote

Two reasons for slow Windows 8 PC sales come readily to mind. First, touch-enabled laptops running the new OS are more expensive than non-touch versions, giving consumers a reverse incentive to adopt a new screen experience which is clearly designed for touch. Second, PC sales have been slowing across the board, quarter by quarter, as consumer dollars shift to slabs and phones.

The only misstep in the article is touting the figure of 60 million Windows 8 licenses sold as a positive sign. We know the problems with that. But there's a lot more good stuff:

Quote

Windows 8 and Surface together represent a prodigious bet to round out an eco-branding ploy which hits all major product categories with a consistent look and feel. It is the insistence of that last point, the Metro interface everywhere, that is unnecessary and harmful.

The important question isn't whether consumers will adopt Windows 8; the question is whether Microsoft needs consumers to adopt a computer OS that looks like Windows Phone handsets and Surface tablets. Does a desktop OS need to provide interface continuity with the organism's mobile extensions? Apple, the ecosystem champ since it first brought iTunes to market, doesn't build that way. The functional Windows 8 operating system isn't the chief retail problem. The Metro interface, the blue-tiled placard of a new Microsoft, so different, so strangely touchy and so clearly emblematic of mobile functioning, is what is driving product confusion and refusal to engage.

Removing the Start button in Windows 8 is Microsoft's first misjudgment. The second is refusing to allow booting to the familiar desktop, which would be a friendly and inviting OS customization.

Quote

Microsoft has underestimated how tiny usage obstacles loom large in the consumer experience. The company clearly doesn't want users to avoid Metro. Why not? Why, in fact, shouldn't Microsoft and its retail partners emphasize the desktop interface alternative as a point of reassurance? Is there anything in business more valuable than 92 percent of the market fiercely committed to your core product? Microsoft is marketing like a bully, as if the consumer message were, "We know your technology future better than you do. So you must adopt our vision of it."

Forcing loyal users through a usage quirk at every boot, just to arrive at the starting point that millions of people have loved for years, is wishful thinking at best, user hostility at worst -- and self-damaging in either event.

--JorgeA

[Formfiller]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 17 March 2013 - 02:09 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 17 March 2013 - 12:53 AM, said:

Here's one of the (IMO) best comments down below the main article:
[...]

One of the commenters a few above that one is really stuck on stupid ...

Quote

if you go on statcounters website,and you check out operating system share,you would see that;

http://gs.statcounte...y-201202-201303

Windows 8 3.62%
ios 4.11%

Another month and windows 8 will overtake ios user base that was built in 5 years,from media players to phones to tablets.

So what this genius is doing is once again looking at Apple as his phantom competitor, no doubt green with envy. Nevermind the fact that Microsoft is simply milking its unethical monopoly of 90+% of 1.3 billion or more prisoners. Nevermind the fact that Windows 8 only actual competitor, Windows 7 has all but been removed from as an option while Vista, XP and everything else were long ago yanked from contention. iOS comes only installed on completely different devices that people must intentionally purchase. Like OS X it is not available as an option on anything for sale, let alone on anything where a customer can select it over Windows. Classic apples and oranges. But that is the Microsoft way.

It is exactly like someone at the Post Office crowing that they have a larger user base than UPS or Fedex.

Well, the primary way to access the internet is - despite all the tablet hype - still the Windows PC/laptop. I had no doubts that W8 would overtake Android and IOS in terms of web-marketshare, thanks to its sales on the PC. The real question was whether it could overtake XP/W7 (or even Vista) in reasonable time. And it looks as if Vista had a far better performance. Microsoft's primary goal with Windows 8 though (getting a piece of the tablet market) is in a pretty lousy state. Netapplications counts RT devices as well (under the "Windows 8 touch" category) and that one doesn't even make a dent in the IOS/Android marketshare. I don't know for sure, but I think that metro browsers on x86 based devices are in the "touch" category as well, making W8's stats even more lousy.

There is a really nice doublethink with the 8tards here. They shouted that Microsoft had no other choice with W8 than p***ing its desktop users off, since that market is heading to dinosaur-valley anyway, so fck them. Yet they use the PC/laptop based statistics to claim victory over IOS. Lovely bunch!

This post has been edited by Formfiller: 17 March 2013 - 12:31 PM

[JorgeA]

Here's an excellent analysis of Windows 8 and what it means for Microsoft's future. While it ultimately falls against the new OS, it does so in a cool, clinical manner and it's not exclusively negative -- factors which actually help to increase the impact of his conclusions.

A couple of core passages:

Quote

Because of its problems, Windows 8 isn't fun to use, at least for me. Whatever sense of joy I get from the cool new graphics is outweighed by a feeling that my productivity is being reduced. Think of the best new app or website you've ever discovered; the feeling you got the first time you understood the power of Twitter or you created a presentation and it came out looking great. That feeling of empowerment and excitement is critical to getting people started with a new technology. But Windows 8 makes makes me feel limited and cramped. It isn't a launch pad, it's a cage.

Quote

I think Microsoft is scared that it might be permanently closed out of the new markets, so it wants to force people onto Metro before that happens. I believe that's really why it eliminated the Start menu. If Start is still there, Windows users could live for years without learning much about Metro. But with Start gone, Windows users will have to use bits of Metro now, and Microsoft believes they'll naturally embrace it once they've been forced to use it.

Here's what Microsoft itself said in a blog post about the Windows 8 interface (link):

"Fundamentally, we believe in people and their ability to adapt and move forward. Throughout the history of computing, people have again and again adapted to new paradigms and interaction methods."

I always get scared when a designer talks about the inevitability of people accepting a change. It's like you're counting on some mystical law of nature to cause a migration, rather than enticing people to move by giving them something that works better than what they have today. That's how the DOS to Windows transition worked -- people could (and did) continue to live in DOS for years until they learned how much more they could get done with Windows. But Microsoft has decided to force the issue. Then it rationalizes the decision with bromides like "we believe in people" and "the DOS users complained a lot too and look how that turned out."

All in all, well worth the read.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

And now for a lighter touch (so to speak...):



--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

JorgeA, on 18 March 2013 - 12:29 AM, said:

Quote

"Fundamentally, we believe in people and their ability to adapt and move forward. Throughout the history of computing, people have again and again adapted to new paradigms and interaction methods."

A message to the good MS guys:
Sure, the whole problem is that you need to turn 180 degrees in order to look forward, the NCI represents "backwards", I will re-iterate how you will soon be calling the desktop and start menu "legacy interface" with the intent of somehow give some more dignity to the NCI , but effectively undermining the value of what you provided all these years and that proved to be successful:
http://homepage.ntlw...pejorative.html

Among the above quotes, I particularly like the definition by Peter Langston:

Quote

legacy (adj) — A pejorative term used in the computer industry meaning "it works"

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

HalloweenDocument12, on 14 March 2013 - 01:21 PM, said:

And then there's this classic, which for sure has been posted in here (doesn't embed for some reason and doesn't link unless it's youtu.be):

http://youtu.be/WTYet-qf1jo

Yes, I remember seeing that around here somewhere. It's VERY good. Worth posting back up here every few months, for the sake of new thread readers.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

jaclaz, on 18 March 2013 - 03:18 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 18 March 2013 - 12:29 AM, said:

Quote

"Fundamentally, we believe in people and their ability to adapt and move forward. Throughout the history of computing, people have again and again adapted to new paradigms and interaction methods."

A message to the good MS guys:
Sure, the whole problem is that you need to turn 180 degrees in order to look forward, the NCI represents "backwards", I will re-iterate how you will soon be calling the desktop and start menu "legacy interface" with the intent of somehow give some more dignity to the NCI , but effectively undermining the value of what you provided all these years and that proved to be successful:
http://homepage.ntlw...pejorative.html

Among the above quotes, I particularly like the definition by Peter Langston:

Quote

legacy (adj) — A pejorative term used in the computer industry meaning "it works"

jaclaz

How true!

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

NOT "strictly" Windows 8 connected, but near :
http://www.osnews.com/thread?551437
Selected parts:

Quote

UEFI is just a whole bunch of new ways for your machine to fail or misbehave. If you think ACPI was bad enough, wait till you get a load of UEFI firmware bugs, such as DMA'ing network packets over a region of memory where it wasn't supposed to (causing random OS crashes), or, as in the case of Samsung, bricking your machine because some OS had the audacity to follow Samsung's own declared APIs.

Quote

The BIOS was crap, but at least it was simple. It loaded into predictable locations, and all we needed was a simple set of BIOS extensions in well specified regions to provide new features. Instead, this UEFI crap was concieved of, with the spec itself over a [redacted] 2200 pages long.

Quote

With a spec this long, it's no wonder firmware vendors (who are crap at producing even workable BIOSes) will produce terrible implementations.

Quote

To install an MBR boot virus you'd need write access to the MBR (and it's extremely easy to detect if that sector has been modified). Also, the MBR boot virus would need to run in real mode while all sane OSs switch to protected mode (or long mode) and discard all of the real mode code, so an MBR virus can't easily do anything after the OS has booted. These are the things that makes an MBR boot virus a waste of time.

For UEFI, everything typically sits on a big FAT partition with no security whatsoever; and various parts of UEFI remain (and may be executed as privileged code) after the OS boots. These things combined mean that (without secure boot) UEFI is a massive security disaster.

Secure boot is an attempt to fix UEFI's huge gaping security holes. It's very necessary.

I have rarely seen words as wise condensed in such a few sentences.

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

A video review of Windows 8 by the same guy whose blog I quoted a few posts upthread:



Make sure to check out the discussion (starting about 9:35) of how the Charms options change depending on the context, and how confusing that is.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Lenovo: Windows 8 is so good, everyone wants Windows 7. We'll just leave Redmond's latest OS on this DVD, over here. ( UK Register 2013-03-18 )

Lenovo ditches Windows 8 for 7 for the enterprise ( NeoWin 2013-03-19 )

Quote

You don't notch up 15 consecutive quarters of growth in a declining market without doing something right - so what's PC maker Lenovo doing right?

Well, many things. But it can't do any harm that Lenovo is protecting enterprises from the waterboarding torture of the Microsoft Windows 8 operating system. The majority of Lenovo's enterprise shipments have Windows 7 installed; the touchscreen-friendly Windows 8 is discreetly bundled on its own separate disc.

Quote

The computer maker even throws in a Start Menu for Windows 8, which is installable from the Lenovo software bundle.

Quote

The company wouldn't be drawn on the exact ratio of Windows 7 to Windows 8 machines shipped.

Save that link for the fanboys who like Moonie cultists or Stepford Wives reflexively throw up the alleged success of Lenovo as a sign of promise ( and really it is just Nokia and Lenovo at this point that anyone will ever point to! ). The only reason there are any Windows 8 systems is that Microsoft is using its highly developed monopoly to leverage this abomination into the user space. Unfortunately for Microsoft and her zealots and enablers, this story shows that when it comes to self-preservation, the OEMs are beginning to grow a spine and show some signs of intelligence.

EDIT: added another article

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 19 March 2013 - 12:27 PM

[HalloweenDocument12]

Quote

Because of its problems, Windows 8 isn't fun to use, at least for me. Whatever sense of joy I get from the cool new graphics is outweighed by a feeling that my productivity is being reduced. Think of the best new app or website you've ever discovered; the feeling you got the first time you understood the power of Twitter or you created a presentation and it came out looking great. That feeling of empowerment and excitement is critical to getting people started with a new technology. But Windows 8 makes makes me feel limited and cramped. It isn't a launch pad, it's a cage.

When I read this I thought of all the "Flash websites" that sprung up circa 1998-2000. The text was very small, not scalable, and not indexed by search engines. The layout was fixed and always shoved to the upper-left corner of the browser window. Sometimes sound would be unexpectedly loud, mouseovers over every element would generate sound, and the sounds would stack and combine into a crackling, distorted, speaker blowing mess. Still, despite all this, Flash websites were "the future" and HTML was all but dead. The more sane at the time proclaimed Flash as a companion or replacement for Java, to be used for games, novelties, and, later on, ads.

Quote

I think Microsoft is scared that it might be permanently closed out of the new markets, so it wants to force people onto Metro before that happens. I believe that's really why it eliminated the Start menu. If Start is still there, Windows users could live for years without learning much about Metro. But with Start gone, Windows users will have to use bits of Metro now, and Microsoft believes they'll naturally embrace it once they've been forced to use it.

Quote

"Fundamentally, we believe in people and their ability to adapt and move forward. Throughout the history of computing, people have again and again adapted to new paradigms and interaction methods."

I always get scared when a designer talks about the inevitability of people accepting a change. It's like you're counting on some mystical law of nature to cause a migration, rather than enticing people to move by giving them something that works better than what they have today. That's how the DOS to Windows transition worked -- people could (and did) continue to live in DOS for years until they learned how much more they could get done with Windows. But Microsoft has decided to force the issue. Then it rationalizes the decision with bromides like "we believe in people" and "the DOS users complained a lot too and look how that turned out."

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the number of people who understand this motivation of Microsoft but fail to realize that by pulling the rug from their customers' feet Microsoft is risking exodus to competing products. Change is not inevitable when your product is a less developed version of what the competition offers. I think Microsoft of the 90s was scared that despite all their work that Windows 95 still might not be convincing over Macintosh and/or the previous interfaces (DOS and/or Windows 3), which while loathed by many was still profitable. This Microsoft is pretending competition doesn't exist, even though it is far more established in the target market.

The story about people willingly using DOS for years is disingenuous. Almost everybody converted instantly because Windows 95 was such an upgrade. They had to because the Internet didn't really work with DOS, and even if the Internet wasn't of interest, Windows 95's ad-hoc networking was still superior to the unaffordable Netware on DOS. The problem was that it took years for new industry-specific software to be written so people were forced to stick with DOS for a keystone program, which ran in a real-mode window within Windows 95-98. People hated this at worst and tolerated it at best. Though Progman.exe and Fileman.exe were still around, no one used them and accepted Explorer as an upgrade over Windows 3.

This post has been edited by HalloweenDocument12: 18 March 2013 - 11:30 AM

[Tripredacus]

Windows 8 in the Enterprise are causing headaches for administrators apparently. Some of the functions of Windows 8 such as Mail and others absolutely require that you are logged in using your Live account in order to function. Companies that are now purchasing Windows 8 systems have 2 problems with this:
1. They do not want to administer/manage hundreds of Microsoft accounts for their users
2. They do not want their users to use their personal accounts (if they even have them).

Read some frustrated posts here:
http://social.techne...de-5d369abe1450