U-turn? I don't think so. A company like Microsoft doesn't change its logo and completely redevelop its entire web presence so that for the first time ever its entire product line-up is consistent unless it has really, really carefully thought through its plans, and is pretty damn committed to them. And, even if Windows 8 wasn't a rave success, it would be incredibly weak (not to mention idiotic) to cave to pressure from short-sighted consumers and pundits and return to the old desktop. Besides, I doubt anyone at Microsoft is that upset about Windows 8's reception - it was a truly foundational release, with so much work done in so many areas, and so obviously a work in progress, that even modest success was probably a good result.
Windows 8 was just the start of a massive transition process for Microsoft. Inevitably there were a lot of rough areas, room to improve, etc. Microsoft will have gained a huge amount of feedback, done a huge amount of work thinking about how to build on 8. I expect to continually up the polish, improve the features, smooth the split between both the new UI and the desktop, as well as improve the transition between different form factors, handle integration for users with multiple devices and so on better - but I don't see any significant reversal of direction. The old desktop is simply too antiquated and if Microsoft were to remain fused to it for any longer it would put them in an extremely dangerous position, given the quantum leaps in UI happening at the moment. The big question mark is how Microsoft is going to handle legacy app support while unifying the overall experience and setting sensible guidelines for what new apps (both Metro and Desktop) should look like. There is a lot of inertia in the Windows ecosystem and it will take a while to shift, but the results will definitely be worth it I think.
> I doubt anyone at Microsoft is that upset about Windows 8's reception
You are wrong. I mean, I'm sure there are people at Microsoft who don't care. Windows 8 is a failure so far. They need to salvage it.
This teenage attitude of it being "weak" to fix it and "cave" to consumer demands doesn't cut it when you're talking about a multi-billion dollar product completely failing in a publicly traded company. Microsoft has a legal obligation to its investors to fix this problem.
> but I don't see any significant reversal of direction
Again, you're wrong.
They're releasing a patch to add in boot to desktop and reintroduce the start button. The only thing they aren't undoing yet is giving a traditional start menu instead of the start screen.
Consumers have spoken clearly; they don't like or want Windows 8. It doesn't matter if it's better in your opinion. It's a product for the masses. It's a product for Mom & Dad, they need to be able to use it. And that means that abandoning all the established visual dialogue is a stupid mistake.
The lack of sales has shown that, and it's why Microsoft is reversing direction and releasing this patch.
There's a reason this news is being covered in the Financial Times; because investors see lack of Windows 8 sales and they get very unhappy.
You might be right - like I said, I think they will try to smooth the desktop-metro split, which was handled clumsily in Windows 8. Again, I think it's a start of a long transition for Microsoft (and the industry in general) and so I don't think it is surprising that there were rough patches.
As far as the "consumers have spoken", perhaps they have, but I don't advocate Microsoft staying the course out of some teenage idea of not admitting failure. I advocate it because the potential OS that could evolve from the foundation started with Windows 8 is the only feasible long-term option if Microsoft is to remain competitive over the next ten years.
Consumers are short-sighted, and currently the problem for Microsoft is, in a nutshell, maintaining legacy support gracefully while continuing to progress towards the new paradigm.
I sell Windows desktop software, so I decided to check my visitor stats for the past month. It's been 7 months since Windows 8 was released and less than 5% of my Windows visitors are running Win8. I checked the same time frame after Windows 7 was released, and roughly 13% of my visitors were running Win7. If i had that big of a sales drop, I'd be looking inward, not outward.
Windows 8 may be a visionary change taking Microsoft into the future. The problem, though, is that it's a tablet vision being applied to a desktop system.
I'm a Windows consumer that doesn't like Windows 8. I don't think I'm short sighted. I'm just trying to get work done.
This is horrible analysis: comparing Vista to windows 7 changes to windows 7 to 8 changes.
Vista was arguably Microsoft's worst OS. Windows 7 arguably the best. Obviously the changes you mention would be better. In fact, with 5% I am amazed and think that is rather impressive.
Those are direct quotes from your comments. If you want to retcon them, fine. All I see is a huge set of assertions from you, and now a lot of backpedaling as your arguments are being dismantled.
I don't understand why you say "A company like Microsoft... has really, really carefully thought through its plans... [but?] the desktop-metro split... was handled clumsily in Windows 8."
I'm connecting whole thoughts of yours unfairly to show how fundamentally contradictory those two thoughts are. The desktop-metro split was, in my opinion, absolutely the most important part of Windows 8, that they HAD to get right, and upon which its entire success or failure would be based.
Do you disagree with my assertion that the desktop-metro split was the most important aspect of Windows 8? Isn't Microsoft the kind of company that "really, really carefully [thinks] through its plans"?
It was handled clumsily because the Windows team had to move fast and break things. Windows 8 has a lot of pretty important under the hood changes. And it's no trivial feat to try and develop and implement a future-proof new UI style that can be layered over the old system. Anyway, this comparison is apples to oranges: Microsoft's top level long-term strategic vision compared to the Windows' team's short-term execution.
You might argue that the Windows team dropped the ball and didn't get enough right with this release. I would agree that they didn't get everything right, but long term I see the specific success of Windows 8 being of little consequence to the company - simply because future releases will continue to build on every aspect of Windows 8, as, out of the current Cambrian soup of a halfway OS, confused consumers and eclectic OEM devices, a new consensus about how computers should work is forged.
> Consumers have spoken clearly; they don't like or want Windows 8.
any evidence to back that up..? if anything, it seems the 'masses' are just fine with it and its tech geeks that are most bothered.. Microsoft just announced that they've passed 100 million Windows 8 licenses sold in the six months since launch, which is on-par with where Windows 7 was at this point in its lifecycle.
> The lack of sales has shown that, and it's why Microsoft is reversing direction and releasing this patch.
again, no. if anything, i'd say Windows 8 sales are rather impressive given they’re matching the pace of Windows 7 which came following a poorly received Vista.. you'd think that a release following a very popular and stable release (7 to 8) would see comparatively less traction than one following a poor one (Vista to 7), but it’s still holding-up, and doing so in a declining PC market farcing a number of other external forces.
> There's a reason this news is being covered in the Financial Times; because investors see lack of Windows 8 sales and they get very unhappy.
not true. just because it’s the FT reporting doesn't mean it’s any more insightful than your typical tech blog or speak for investor sentiment, at all. MSFT shares have been performing rather well since the launch of Windows 8. either way, Microsoft is a large and increasingly diversified company, so i wouldn't put too much weight in that one way or another. you make it sound like this is the largest product flop in the history of the world.. very sensational, also very not untrue.
Microsoft just released the numbers and it's only selling at half the rate of Windows 7. (Win7 averaged 20mil/mo, Win8 is averaging 10.)
And sales should be HIGHER following a successful release than a failed one. People were skeptical of Windows 7 when it came out because Vista had gotten so much flack. Everybody liked 7 so a solid follow up to it should have sold well.
Also you missed my point about FT, I wasn't saying that FT is more insightful. Certainly it isn't when it comes to tech stuff. But it's in the FT because investors are concerned about what Microsoft is doing, and Microsoft wants the FT to report that they are releasing a fix patch for Windows 8 to calm investors down.
edit:
Also keep in mind that those Windows 8 sales numbers include sales of Windows 8 RT and Windows 8 on Surface Pros. Granted sales for those devices are not great either, but it's inflating Windows 8 numbers when comparing them to Windows 7 numbers; it's not an apples to apples comparison.
maybe i’m just dense, but i’m not following youth logic or your math here..
numbers have been officially reported at two intervals: 60 million sold as of January 2013 [1], and 100 million as of May 2013 [2]. both points indicate its performing fairly well, and just shy of its predecessor. while not ideal, achieving these volumes is most certainly not so catastrophic that ‘investors’ are getting worried. if anything, they appear to be rewarding the company for taking steps to adapt early-on (relatively speaking).
as for sales needing to be higher following a successful release, that’s most certainly not true as a general rule and in this particular case doesn’t make sense either. we're not talking about movie release.. a PC (and, by extension, Windows to most) is a utility, not a discretionary good. most people depend on it in some form or another and if their PC isn't performing adequately to accomplish some task, they upgrade; if it’s fine, they stick it out until need be.. in the case of Vista to 7, many people were plagued with issues and in-need of new PCs (and a more stable OS), hence the rapid rate at which it sold. today, a PC running 7 from a few years back is still fairly capable and the need to upgrade is less pronounced. that it especially true if people are spending less time on a PC as many consumption-related activities can be transferred to other devices like smartphones and tablets.
speaking of which, keep in mind how much has changed since 7 was released.. people are now holding-on to their PCs for longer periods of time and there is increased competition from tablets and smartphones. the market is in decline, i’m not arguing against that, but pointing to 8 as the culprit is inaccurate.
edit: sales numbers are never that comparable, and its been three years.. for all the reasons listed above, they're not comparable.. introducing surface into the mix also makes them less comparable..
my point has less to do with specific milestones and more so to the point that by no reasonable standard could you call the product a failure so far. and projecting your particular dissatisfaction with the changes made (or maybe just a general grudge against the company, i don't know?) to the 'masses' is inaccurate and doesn't add any real value.
- The whole point of Windows 8 was to make massive inroads into tablets with the Surface and other OEM models; that's not happening at the rate they hoped
- The PC market is clearly shrinking at an increased rate due to pressure from the smartphone, iPad and other tablets.
So in summary, the growth rates of the iPad, Win 2008 licenses shouldn't be flat - they should be up. These are the charts that worries Microsoft:
You misunderstand me. I don't think Microsoft does everything right. They seem to rush, and they seem to be loathe to admit that their products are anything less than amazing. Generally, their strategy seems to be "leap in with both feet then work out what to do." They're not Apple - Apple is probably crafting their next-gen interface right now and may well release it in a consummately polished single stroke at exactly the opportune moment. Maybe. But I know momentum when I see it and Microsoft is building it. Like I said, I expect the Windows 8+ ecosystem to continually improve and become more and more of a pleasure "straight out of the box." I'm not saying it's great right now or that ultimately Microsoft's gamble will work out, but I am optimistic.
Apple "rushes" things, they push hard on an aggressive schedule. They make mistakes, but they correct them more quickly because they iterate faster. Remember Apple releases new versions of iOS annually and OS X is on an 18-24 month release cycle as well.
Microsoft tends to release a new version of Windows every three to five years, and omitting the duds that nobody wants (e.g. Vista, Windows ME) the cycle is even longer.
What Microsoft rushes is not their development cycle, but their design process. Where Apple would try 100 things and throw out 99 of them, Microsoft in comparison would try 10 and throw out 8. They are getting better, but this Windows 8 serves as an example of how they're prisoner to compromises.
This should be a law of failed software. You know a product has completely failed when something like this is said. Blaming the users is the last refuge of failed software developers.
Definitely agreed. One can continue to blame the market and the consumers for all their flaws but ultimately, they are the ones to decide if businesses will be rewarded with purchases.
On the contrary. If I had argued that consumers should like Windows 8, then your critique would be valid. However I never once claimed that consumers should like it. In fact, in multiple posts I've happily agreed that consumers mostly shouldn't, as it simply does not offer compelling benefits over 7 or other competing OSes.
What I am arguing instead (which you seem to have missed) is that consumer distaste for Windows 8 is an incredibly poor measure for the long-term rationality of Microsoft's business and product strategy. Because consumers are short-sighted and only care about whether a product is good today, not whether it is a transitional release laying the foundation to a competitive 201X ecosystem blah blah blah.
"doesn't change its logo and completely redevelop its entire web presence so that for the first time ever its entire product line-up is consistent unless it has really, really carefully thought through its plans"
Maybe it should have thought through those plans before deciding to rebrand everything based on an unproven user-interface design?
Everyone loves to rail on Metro but there are a ton of HCI reasons that its the superior interface and most people I know who've actually given it a fair shot (average users mostly) like it.
It's an odd decision to force onto people, but when most people actually use it, it's a pretty good interface and you realize the Start menu was actually less efficient in many regards.
People spent their entire computer lives relying on the Start Button and Taskbar. I spent a good amount of mine learning how to use it with the most efficiency and incorporated it into my daily workflow.
Then all of a sudden, in one single new version of Windows, it's all gone. Now 90% of people who have used this brand are completely lost. I gave it a fair shot and had to Google everything I did. I had trouble even getting to an internet browser.
Maybe an interface without a start menu is superior, but at the very least Windows 8 should have been a hybrid version which came with the Start button and taskbar enabled by default and a "new" way to remove the start button and taskbar.
Having to move my mouse in a certain corner of the screen to access a backend "metro" area (which is the only way to actually get to program or files now) is NOT good UI design.
It is not a superior interface for anything that isn't a small tablet or a phone. I'm in front of the big monitor and just to select another program boom the whole darned screen chnages the color, evrything I look at disappears just to present met "metro." That UI is good for the phone, awful for big screens. Whoever decided that it doesn't matter should be publicly humiliated. Ditto for those that claim that it's better for all cases.
Can you please explain how can you consider it superior to make everything you work with disappear, no matter how big the screen you work with is, just to start another program? I'm not interested for the screen sizes of the phones, but 21 inches and above. Then do the same discussion for all non-touch monitors and touch dependencies.
Metro existed before Windows 8 on the Windows phones. There's no good UI reason to make all big screen desktops behave like small screen phones. It was a pure political decision and they deserve every bad voice there is.
Is that definitely right? Most metro apps should snap to 1/3 or 2/3 width allowing two apps side-by-side.
Edit: OK, so apparently you can[1] snap the default pdf viewer, but I can see it's not going to be a very nice experience having either a video or the pdf viewer occupying 1/3rd of the screen.
Set the default PDF viewer to Chrome, it renders well enough and is pretty quick. Also make sure to set most media default viewers to alternatives, like images, videos, and anything else that could trigger the default metro viewers.
Maybe neither of us are privy to Microsoft's innermost strategic decision-making processes, so neither are qualified to comment on whether they've thought this through?
That said, I would argue it is more efficient to expect that one of the world's largest companies would think very carefully about its options before making such a huge leap.
One more thing: remember that Microsoft is not gambling on the current Windows 8 UI paradigm itself. Not exactly. Microsoft is gambling on the general style: clean, clear typography matched with bold blocked colour and clear, simple iconography.
Granted it's not perfect, there are still hiccups - the search magnifying glass for instance. I expect those hiccups to be ironed out soon enough though. Regardless, what Microsoft is effectively doing is staking its claim on a visual style, which it clearly thinks will be prime real estate over the next decade. I think it'll pay off handsomely. At the very least they've wiped the slate clean and laid a foundation that will be much easier to tweak in future.
My first impression that Microsoft perhaps hadn't thought the whole Windows 8 UI through was actually gained at a Microsoft conference. A chap sitting in front of me was attempting to use the Windows 8 tiled interface on a laptop balanced on his lap - he reached out to do something, touching the screen and managing to knock the laptop off his lap onto the floor.
I like a lot of Microsoft products (Excel, Windows 7, Visual Studio, SQL Server, Dynamics AX) - so I'm not a Microsoft hater by any means but I do wonder about their judgement in this particular area.
Like I said in another comment, I'd never argue that Windows 8 right now is worth using. For most people it doesn't offer compelling improvements. Where I differ from most people is that I see a lot of promise in the future Windows 8 hints at, and I have a lot of trust in the ability of Microsoft to continually improve its processes, recognise its errors, and produce better and better products. That after all was the lesson of Vista for me - Microsoft is responsive to defects in its operations.
I'm a long time Windows user. I gave Win8 a try and had to google "How to shut down Windows 8" and "How to close apps in Windows 8". It's ridiculous. Just go to google and type in "how to shut " and it'll suggest you the rest. Same goes for "how to close apps ".
You're quite right. That is ridiculous. It's ridiculous because when you install it and start it up it tells you about the hot corners and then lo and behold: there's the power button.
It actually physically pains me to be a Windows apologist, but it was right there.
The 'how to close apps' one I'll give you though, because the way they handle Windows 8 apps seems to be batshit crazy when viewed along side regular Windows apps on the same machine. If they'd just decided to go down that similar to iOS route with all their apps it'd make more sense, but having both systems there is just weird.
Personally I don't see the need to change it. Stick to their guns and people will complain about it and use it anyway. Then when the next non-trivial (or not) change comes along they'll bitch about that too and everyone will say Microsoft is doomed all over again.
Welcome to the real world: users (even power users) don't read on-screen instructions. You can throw at them hundreds of pop-ups and tutorials and wizards, and they still will just go next-next-next.
This is why UI designs must be intuitive. Metro is extremely intuitive in many ways, but it royally screwed up some basics (no shutdown button, no alternative to hot corner... no no no).
Great. So what? Just because the current product isn't good right now doesn't mean that the direction it is heading in is bad. You might not like Windows 8 that much, and you probably shouldn't. I'd never argue that people should like it. Why should they? It's a janky feature-sparse mashup OS. I use it on desktop myself and while I appreciate the performance bump and some of the new features, I don't have any use for Metro and it took quite a few tweaks for me to be happy with the desktop experience. You're absolutely right, currently it just doesn't offer the 10X product improvement necessary to induce eager consumer behaviour change.
Look, Microsoft is making an omelette. But right now all they have to sell is broken eggs. The only source of confusion here is that Microsoft's marketing department trying to convince everyone that they've got an omelette to sell. Look at it like that and there really isn't much to argue about anymore.
You don't do that when you are the market leader with another company worth $140 billion breathing down your neck. That's how you lose the game and go bankrupt and are sitting out on the street wondering WTF just happened.
They have a proven product, Windows, which was great because of its ease of use. People literally grew up with Windows and many people rely on its consistent user interface. Then they made it unnecessarily difficult to access the file manager, applications, and the control panel just so that they could push their new and unproven "Metro" design. That's just DUMB.
I've heard this a few times from people and the really baffling part of it for me is how many people still shut down their computers these days. Maybe I'm a special case, but for laptops I close the lid and it sleeps until I need it again and for desktops, I get up and walk away and it goes to sleep until I need it again. The only time it shuts down or restarts is when an update requires it.
I've used Win7 for years and I always use "WinKey+RightArrow+RightArrow" and then I either press 'r', 's' or sleep or restart or whatever I want (it's super quick onece you're used to it).
I don't want my lid to do anything. I have SSH session open and don't want them to kill (and don't start about screen...).
Also, my power button would've just shut down linux since the Win8 was in a VM.
Tell me about it! The only time I even restart my machine is that Tuesday every month when the updates are forced, and then its forced when I come to the office on Wednesday since I postponed from the day before.
baffling, really? Here's the other side: electricity isn't free.. Ok it's not that expensive, but I know enough people that shhut it down just for that extra bit of peace of mind knowing they are not wasting energy. Or as some might even say, in the extreme, ruining the planet even more :P
It was incredible short-sighted to force Metro upon Windows 8 in the first place and hope it will just work out somehow. Metro may be fine on a tablet, but is a inherently bad and tedious user-experience on the PC, and for people using PCs for productivity purposes it's downright useless. Current UI-Idioms have worked and have been improved upon for nearly 3 decades. They are throwing them out in favor of something, that has, as of yet, only found some limited use in smartphones.
Yes, Microsoft needs to gain a foothold in the mobile market, and the best way to do that is probably using Windows as leverage. But if they are not careful they are alienating their existing user-base. Things like removing the Start-Button to promote more use of Metro is an incredibile stupid move, and all the feedback prior to release was pointing out these problems. Yet they went ahead, hoping it'll magically work out. It's doesn't, and the only ones who loves it, are sellers of third-party Start-Button Apps ;)
Look at how OS X is set up. It shares a tremendous amount of APIs with iOS. Apps on the OS X AppStore feel similar to the ones on the iOS AppStore, yet they manage to incorporate PC UI-Idioms like Windows and Point & Click input. No you can not write one App for all systems, but it allows you to share a lot of common code, and create Apps, that have a unified UE, and still are adapted perfectly for each platform. This direction makes much more sense.
We tie OS ugrades to new hardware. After issuing a couple of hundred really nice ultrabooks with Windows 8, people were literally demanding old Dell 630's that had been upgraded to Windows 7 back.
I personally am starting to like Windows 8 -- but the experience is weird and took me about a month to get used to.
They should have held the release back until they had Office integrated with the Metro UI. That's a challenge to, because the multi-tasking, window-based desktop metaphor is kind of a key advantage of Windows that you lose with Metro.
Ya, the only thing I'm asking is that staid old tired microsoft use their enterprise customers as Guinea pigs for their SecureBoot and UI/UX experimentation, and leave us consumers with access to a clean marketplace for devices (read: no infecting motherboards with monopoly-extending signing keys and other DRM schemes).
What a ridiculously over the top hack article. In Windows 8, Microsoft did a lot right, and a couple of things wrong. In 8.1 they are trying to fix those couple of things.
If they put the start button back and default to the desktop, that would address 90% of people's concerns. The only other major issue is that Metro apps are so far pretty useless, but they are very easy to avoid until they get better (or just ignore them permanently).
As to it being "widely panned", I saw a lot of positive reviews of it when it came out. Even the Verge, who usually hate anything and everything Microsoft gave it a good review.
The absolute number of things done "right" or "wrong" doesn't matter so much.
Many small "right things" will not balance out even a single, massive "wrong thing".
Keep in mind that the single "wrong thing" can in turn spawn new problems of its own, like a tarnished reputation and uncertainty among consumers.
It should be quite clear now, although it was pretty clear during the preview releases, that the UI changes were overwhelmingly bad. Even if such problems are fixed with a subsequent update, there are enough people who still just won't trust it, based on the poor initial experiences.
Missing start button and not booting to the desktop are by far the two biggest complaints I hear about Windows 8. These are, in the scheme of things, not exactly massive issues. There are numerous programs out there that fix this issue, and Microsoft can fix them with a minor tweak.
Metro apps have a load of problems, but since they are completely avoidable (and I think most people are just completely avoiding them) it's not a major issue. It's like widgets in Vista.
That workspace all the way to the left on OS X with widgets, whatever it's called. I've literally never seen anyone use that feature, but I wouldn't consider it a major problem that it's there.
> These are, in the scheme of things, not exactly massive issues.
The perception can be very different though. There are those that really don't like it, and it is rubbed in their face every time they login to their machine. They are small matters, I agree: Metro apps can be completely ignored and most of what I used the start menu for is just as it was (ctrl+esc, start typing, pick from list) and is in some ways better, but it is still a change in look and feel that for a novice user adds friction.
Worse for a marketing/sales point of view: there are people who have not really formed an opinion and have decided to avoid Windows 8 (not upgrading, buying a machine with 7 instead, or getting the option and downgrading to 7 like many did from Vista to XP) because there is a lot of press questioning the UI changes. These people might not know that the change is minor when you consider their entire day, but it is being talked about it loudly enough that MS don't want to take the risk.
Another problem for Windows 8 is of course that many people simply have no real need to upgrade and no end of additional UI options is going to change that. If people have no problem with Win7 then MS can make Win8 look exactly like Win7 and it'll make no difference to that class of user (a very large class of user) unless they offer the upgrade for free.
The only reason I have 8 is that I was rebuilding my main home PC, it was a very cheap upgrade a the time, and I might have need to do Windows Phone 8 development in the not-too-distant future (the SDK for that will not install on older Windows).
So I think we agree that there are only fairly minor issues, but many people feel that they are major.
I really think that a lot of this reaction is just because it's popular to hate Microsoft - so any small perceived missteps are blown massively out of proportion (particularly by the media).
Microsoft could have gone down the path of keeping everything exactly the same, and providing no innovation; that probably would have worked great in the short term - but they are trying to do something new and there are growing pains associated with it.
> So I think we agree that there are only fairly minor issues, but many people feel that they are major.
Essentially, yes.
> Microsoft could have gone down the path of keeping everything exactly the same ... that probably would have worked in the short term
I'm not sure it would, as people would have even less reason to upgrade. The man on the street is not going to be impressed by under-the-hood improvements to the point of spending upgrade cash so while they'd have saved some hassle on new sales they would have lost revenue on upgrades. Admittedly the reception has made that upgrade income smaller than they hoped for anyway, but that is hindsight talking.
> but they are trying to do something new and there are growing pains* associated with it*
This is a bit part of the perception problem I think. A proportion of the of the people who have upgraded (ignoring those who have opinions despite not having tried it) feel that Windows 8 is using them as guinea pigs for the new tablet stuff that they don't feel fits with their desktop use well. If MS had made the new UI changes more easily turn-off-and-on-able initially they might have avoided some of this friction.
Booting by default into an inferior environment and not having the chance to change that default sounds like a massive issue to me.
Maybe not massive from the developers' point of view (they can probably revert it just from tweaking a flag somewhere in the code), but definitely massive for the user which will see a completely different desktop environment.
The problem is with Metro apps, not the start screen.
The full screen start menu is, in my opinion and the opinion of everyone I've spoken with, better than the old start menu. For the beginner user, they have a nice big visual screen with the name and icon of all the programs they use. For the advanced user, they are going to type the name of the program or setting they want - and this works better in Win 8 than Win 7.
The big problems only start when you click into a Metro app, like News, but I don't think many people are doing that anyway - they are just clicking either "Desktop", "Chrome" or "Word/Excel/Outlook".
Windows 8 completely broke the wifi management screen. It's nigh impossible to connect my Surface RT to anything other than a simple home router in my experience, and often times even that will fail.
Heaven forbid you try and connect it to a corporate wifi with certificates et. al. I've tried - it's not pretty and I was not able to get it working. You have to use a crazy number of backdoors to features that aren't exposed anywhere in the GUI.
For the power user those might be minor issues, but not for the average user. The start menu and the initial boot screen are about the most important things to get right to be user friendly to the mass market.
I think that the major issue with the desktop is that it really isnt a desktop in the old sense (where you can access "everything") and more like a desktop simulation for no-metro software
> If they put the start button back and default to the desktop, that would address 90% of people's concerns.
And that would erase 90% of Windows 8. Hard to call Windows 8 a success if Win8.1 or whatever reverts back to the good ol' start-button-driven desktop by default. Windows 8 will be what, an obscure alternate desktop hidden in a user setting that no one will use?
The whole measure of success for Windows 8 is exactly the new UI and whether the users, you know, use it. The old desktop is barely an evolution of Windows 7 for the common user.
Were you so happy to bash someone that you missed the "default back to the desktop" part? From the average end user point a view, bring back the "default desktop" and the start button and yes, you're effectively back to Win7. I accept your apologies.
> As to it being "widely panned", I saw a lot of positive reviews of it when it came out.
The press does good reviews because otherwise they would be banned from doing any reviews at all by MS. Or they get nice new shiny hardware for the reviews. You should take all press reviews with a pinch of salt.
I've not used it extensively but found it confusing. My Father (non-techy) absolutely hates it. He hated Vista too but likes his Win 7 box.
Very dangerous for MS to screw around with this as inertia and familiarity are a huge force in keeping them dominant. In their position the worst thing they could do is force big changes, which is what they've done.
As another random anecdote: my technically not-inclined girlfriend loves it. Finds it super easy to use: use the desktop mode for her architecture apps, and metro for all her personal stuff.
I even like it, although I did just wipe it on my new laptop for Ubuntu 13.04 - it's quite nice to use in my humble opinion.
Nope, stock standard. The way to think about it, is that Metro IS the start-menu.
So, hit the Super (windows) key, and start typing, just like you would to quick launch via Windows 7's start-menu.
Pin your most used desktop apps to the bar in Desktop mode, and I promise with those two tips, you'll find it quite a bit easier to handle :)
Now, hot corners on the other hand... those are a bit annoying. I will add that all this is on a laptop: having gestures enabled is a big plus. I also use a trackpad for my iMac and have one on my desktop at work, so I kinda can't live without them, and Windows 8's are pretty decent. Not OS X level yet, but getting there.
I found myself having to poke around in the program files directory in explorer (very sub-optimal) in order to find out what was actually installed on the machine.
Fair enough, that's something I've not run into myself :) Although, hit the Super key, bring up the Charms bar (swipe in from right on a trackpad, mouse in top right hand corner with a desktop) and there should be an Applications menu that lists them? It's just a standard vertical list of all applications. I think that's where it is, anyway, let me know.
See the thing is, intuitive is an odd concept. We've learned how Windows works over the years, so now it seems "intuitive", but from observing people learning PC's for the first time, this sort of stuff is just as hard for them on 7, 8, or XP!
Now: that's the cause of the problems with Windows 8. We've all had to go back to square-one. Windows 8: the great equaliser ;)
There's a few things I don't like in it, just like every OS. But, it's not bad, I think. Good luck!
Well yeah, what's intuitive is indeed subjective and depends entirely on what the user has already learned, which harks back to my first post - changing things so much is a very dangerous game for an incumbent whose market-share pretty much relies on them not upsetting their users.
Many of their users have taken many years to learn how to operate previous iterations of Windows satisfactorily, and switching stuff around frustrates them.
Myself I'll be sticking with Debian/XFCE because I like it and I don't feel like I'm constantly being told that I'm doing it wrong!
It's like the Windows Vista to 7. Little tweaks here and there.
Win 8 has many changes. Some to the UI, some under the hood. Pretty impressed at the boot speed of Win 8 on a PC with an SSD.
Took a few days to get used to the UI changes, utilising shortcut keys the same way I do on every other windows installs means I see very little of the metro/start screen unless I want to.
My most used apps are all pinned to the start bar (eg: Chrome, Notepad++, etc).
I think most average users probably have 4-5 most used apps, those apps should be pinned to the task bar. Doing that, it kinda acts a bit like the OS X dock and so they just need to click straight on those without searching through menus etc.
One problem I have had with my various PCs over the years is the file and shortcut clutter that accumulates on my desktop, a fault purely my own. Windows took this annoying habit of mine and made it a core feature of Windows 8.
It would be really nice if Windows users decided that Win 8.1 was the version for them. Those XP machines have to be pretty old by now. IE10 could easily hit 25% next year.
Windows 7, which for my uses, is a better OS than Win8, has IE10 as a recommended update. So for most installations of Windows 7 boxes they will automatically update to IE10.
I would consider upgrading to Windows 8.1 if they just made Metro the default desktop background while also keeping the Start button and the taskbar. That would be an interesting combination, since the desktop background is usually wasted space anyway. Sort of like the "active desktop" thing that they tried in Windows 98, but much more elegant. It would also eliminate the nonsense of having to leave the desktop in order to pin programs to the taskbar.
Completely agree. I don't get this stubborn dichotomy between start menu and tiles when we can easily have both.
On a side note, I've installed a Windows 8 beta on my Mac about two years ago and I liked using it. On the other hand I always found the start menu to be a clunky solution.
Microsoft will add features to the UI and give users more time to learn Metro. The comparison to New Coke is a good one, the analysis weak. New Coke gave CocaCola the cover for switching from sugar to high-fructose corn syrup across the product line in the US. "Classic" was a new product.
Metro is the right direction. It will just take time for businesses to catch up. And now the narrative will be about Microsoft's improvements.
What if Mircorsoft had called Windows 8 as some Neo OS v1 (or beta)? What if they had said that this OS is:
1. Optimized for low power chips and is very power efficient
2. Cloud centric and integrates all the modern breed of sensors like accelerometer, GPS, proximity, ...
3. Supports touch and pen inputs as natively as Windows supports keyboard and mice.
4. Super fast
5. Runs your legacy Windows applications
6. Supports most of the devices like cameras, scanners, printers meant to work with Windows
7. Runs in several form factors
8. Gives a familiar .NET and HTML environments to develop applications
I think, calling it Windows has set an expectation for start button and desktop as the landing screen and led to this widespread disappointment. Microsoft failed to get users to approach it with a desire to explore. By making their new OS the mainstream OS shipped with every PC sold (with or without necessary hardware support), they neither chose the initial seed users right nor gave the OS a good chance with right devices.
Is it just me, or is this article and the news in it just way too vague to justify the title? What U-Turn?
Pure guesswork yet they make it sound like nobody will be able to work with Windows anymore.
For all we know MS is just going to add an option to set the desktop as default instead of the tiles now.
Which would be a good thing, and listening to cutomers, but not quite a U-turn.
I don't think there are many investors who expect Microsoft to be the bleeding edge. It's a stable, boring money maker. It might stop making money at some point, but not suddenly.
With those two (Windows and Office natch) cash cows a sufficiently tech-savvy bonobo could CEO Microsoft and turn a profit each and every quarter. Heck, even I could. The momentum that behemoth has must be unnatural. I don't think that this (quarterly profit or whatever) should be the metric by which Ballmer is judged. He should be judged on percentage of penetration into various market segments or something like that. So: consoles, yay; mobile, boo; desktop, yay (you can't beat a good monopoly); server, not so much; media forays, boo; net search, ho-hum; and so forth ...
Ballmer has taken Microsoft from two cash cows...to roughly six in his time frame as CEO. Take a look at how many billion dollar businesses have come to fruition under his tenure. You might be surprised.
The guy gets a bad rap, but its annoying that people want to blame him for the things that are wrong with Microsoft but won't give him credit for the things he's done right.
Sorry, wasn't keeping an eye on replies - I just kind of threw my original comment out into the ether.
I'd like to ask you though. What are the other 4 (5? 3? you said roughly) cash cows do you reckon, and in all seriousness are any of them even close in scale to Windows/Office? Honestly, I mean :)
With those two (Windows and Office natch) cash cows a sufficiently tech-savvy bonobo could CEO Microsoft and turn a profit each and every quarter. Heck, even I could.
Sure you could. Even Apple and Jobs were lucky to beat you to the punch with the iPhone.
Because Microsoft designed Windows and Office once, they have no competitors and are still selling the original product. No upgrade cycles, licensing decisions, dealing with the DOJ, EU etc, no competitors like Oracle, SAP, IBM, Google, Apple and you name it. It's really easy.
Only a moron ignores Microsoft. They pay ~3+% a year in dividend, invest billions in R&D + new companies and still have some $60 Billion in cash. They are really struggling, as you can see http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT+Key+Statistics. The stock for large caps goes back and forth, and the stock price upside is more or less limited by the their huge market cap.
I thought so too until I looked at MS's number over his tenure. Amazing growth and lots of money returned to shareholders. They may not get the press but they are minting cash and entering new businesses every year. They have over a dozen $1billion+ a year businesses.
Oh, and Bill Gates wants him there. And Ballmer is a major shareholder to boot.
Major as is 4% of the vote for a compnay valued at almost $280 Billion is decided by ONE person. Add that of Bill Gates, Bill's foundation, maybe Paul Allen and it ads up. The point was mostly that virtually all his fortune is tied with Microsoft so he has skin in the game. He can still be delusional and risk even his own fortune but still...
My experience with Windows 8 has been through Surface RT. After using iOS, OSX, and Android for years, going to Windows 8 RT has been fun and easy to learn. Maybe, its because UI works on a tablet. I look forward to Microsoft creating a more refined experience around the Metro(modern) interface.
Microsoft dropped the ball on forcing OEMS to create great touch centric devices and marketing. People purchased PCs expecting their traditional Windows experience and received something much different.
I am utterly lost when it comes to Windows and people opinions.
Edit: .... and what MS are up to.
I start with the notion that, IMHO, XP SP3 was and remains a great OS. Its like the OS that Win 95 was building up to. I then replace my main go to desk top machine and it comes with Vista installed. Im worried because every geek and his dog hates it. I buy my new machine intending to wipe the HD and install XP instead. It wrong to hate with out trying, so I give Vista a go. 3 or so years later, Im still using Vista with zero problems. In my eyes its XP with added stuff and a bit of a fluffing. Fine.
Now, kids get new machines and this time its Windows 7. IMHO, good thing it was the kids machines because IMHO Win 7 looks like a kids OS. I try to do some set up stuff and it takes me ages to get anything done. So, that's that for me. Don't want 7 any where near my computer(s). Although to be fair, the kids get on fine with it. Next up, last Christmas, more computers for the kids, laptops with Win 8. All I see its a tablet OS forced on non tablets. Get by the tablet interface and its mangled Win 7, worse to use and find my way around than 7 was. Two identical laptops, but both have different issues. Wireless being the most frustrating.
Right now Im wondering a) why people hate Vista, and b)what my next OS should be. I want XP, I'm happy enough with Vista, but the idea of Win 7 or 8 fills me with dread. And if any one says Linux or Mac, I'll die laughing. Neither even begin to be suitable. (Mac devices are brilliant for the kids, but never me)
I am NOT a serial MS hater, I have always been happy enough with their products as long as I never have to use the first release, and wait for the first service pack and decent drivers. Not great, but the system works. But now I feel un-catered for. Win 7 and 8 are miles away from what I want and I can only see it getting worse. It feels like MS have annoyed all the usual suspect, but now they are going all out to annoy the people who still like them and their products.
And lastly, why on earth force a tablet UI on to desk tops and lap tops? What one earth is that about? Why not a core OS, and you just buy a tablet or PC version?
Like I say, the whole MS thing has me utterly lost. And that is really sad as, as it turns out, with out realising, I'm a loyal MS customer. But right now, Im sticking with Vista until I literally cant.
Yours is the first opinion I've read of someone preferring Vista to Windows 7. Win7 is pretty much superior to both Vista and XPSP3 in almost every way, though especially from a usability and secuirty perspective. It's actually not all that different from Vista in my experience (and you can make it look like Vista pretty easily, if the color scheme bothers you).
Windows 7 likely is the next XP - people will stick with it for 10+ years if they can.
I only have one Windows PC (dual boot Ubuntu / Windows 7 laptop). Still, I like what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8 and hybrid tablets and laptops. When my two Mac laptops are no longer supporting my work because of malfunction or obsolescense I will likely buy whatever the next version of surface pro is.
One thing that I don't understand is why older desktop non-touchscreen PCs don't default to a Windows 7 style interface.
I would like to have one small device (with a huge external monitor when I occasionally need it) for everything. Whether that is a small hybrid tablet/laptop or a powerful cellphone with great docking station support, I would like one universal device. I was very surprised to find a very functional Java/Android IDE for my Galaxy S III - no reason why a future more powerful smartphone with great wireless docking couldn't meet all of my computing requirements.
FT has this incredibly aggravating policy of forcing registration on mobile devices. If you're on a mobile device, request the desktop version of the site, and you should be able to view the content.
Windows 8 was just the start of a massive transition process for Microsoft. Inevitably there were a lot of rough areas, room to improve, etc. Microsoft will have gained a huge amount of feedback, done a huge amount of work thinking about how to build on 8. I expect to continually up the polish, improve the features, smooth the split between both the new UI and the desktop, as well as improve the transition between different form factors, handle integration for users with multiple devices and so on better - but I don't see any significant reversal of direction. The old desktop is simply too antiquated and if Microsoft were to remain fused to it for any longer it would put them in an extremely dangerous position, given the quantum leaps in UI happening at the moment. The big question mark is how Microsoft is going to handle legacy app support while unifying the overall experience and setting sensible guidelines for what new apps (both Metro and Desktop) should look like. There is a lot of inertia in the Windows ecosystem and it will take a while to shift, but the results will definitely be worth it I think.