Windoze 8

The full facts are all enarly out about Update 1.

The most salient are these:

Metro "apps" can be pinned ot the desktop taskbar
Metro apps now have a title bar on top, which can be used to "snap," minimize or close the app.
The Start screen has clickable icons (not tiles) for powering off and search
Metro now has a taskbar. It's unclear to me whether this is the same as the desktop taskbar, or a metro-only one (it amkes a big difference)
On PCs without a touch screen, or with a mouse and keybaord attached, the system boots directly to desktop by default.
Right-clicking on Start screen tiles on Metro brings up a context menu now.

All this is in some measure good. I must admit that had this been the original Win8 release, or had I just now started looking, I migt not have developed a hatred fo Metro, and might have even decided this abortion of an OS wasn't wholly unusable. We can't really tell, as I find it hard to cast my mindset back to where it was in the more innocent time that was late 2012. Nor can I ignore the actual try I made with Win8.1 preview, nor can I discount the countless patronizing, abusive, insulting and downright mean articles against the "desktop die-hards" by the myriad Win8 apologists.

As it is, these changes matter not at all to me. not one bit. Not in any way. What I see is "NO START MENU!!!!!!!!!!" Like that, loud. And I'm dead set against using metro or the start screen or any aprt of the M/M/W mess of an interface.

Now, MS hasn't said, or I ahven't read that they have said, but the pundits ahve said these changes are aimed at making Windows 8(.1) more friendly to "mouse and keyboard" users (and I hear the "horse and buggy" subtext, too, but that may be unfair on my part). They are 100% right. this means that the original release and the Windows 8.1 "upgrade" were not nearly as usable with a mouse and keybaord as Microsoft claimed all along.

And there is one more change, this one completely under the hood. With Update 1, Win8(.1)(Update 1) can run on machines with just 1 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. Now, does this mean this toucc-centric tablet OS could not run on some tablets? I can't see that it could mean anything else. So now, months after its alunch, ti is finally fully tablet compliant.

let me conclude by saying this:

Dear Microsoft,

Indeed Windows 8 is not a soda. just the same, you've managed to illustrate the future textbooks on the topic of "How Not To Develop, Market And Release a new Operating System, Especially One That Is very Different From Its Predecessor," in the same way that Cocal Coal illustrated the textbook on "How Not To Launch. Market And Promote A New Soda." The only lasting legacy of Windows 8, I'm afraid, will be as a lesson for marketing students. lesson 1: make a product people want or can be easily persuaded to make use of, unlike, you know, Windows 8.

I failed to mention two things:

Bot the taskbar and the title bar in metro are not visible at all times. The title bar comes on when you mouse over where it's not 8really), and apaprently so deos the taskbar. There is no option, as far as I've been able to learn, to wither have them visible at all times, or deactivate them altogether (I reason people suing touch on a tablet would not care for both or either).

While this makes sense on a tablet, where screen space is at a premium, it's unnecessary and plain stupid on a desktop PC, or even on a laptop, where screen space is plentiful and doesn't need to be conserved like water in the middle of the Sahara.

Sorry, I don't read every post on your thread and may be repeating something, but thought this might interest you. On the discontinuation of XP.

Quote:

The real problem (for Microsoft) is not that Windows XP is three generations old, having been succeeded by Vista, Windows 7 and now Windows 8. It's that despite the company's best efforts to bump it off, XP is still the OS on nearly one-third of all Windows computers. And the refusal of users to abandon it is hurting sales of Windows 8.


In pulling the plug on Windows XP, Microsoft strongly implied that users should either upgrade to Windows 8 or buy a new computer (with Windows 8 on it). company said that sticking with XP after technical support is withdrawn could leave computers vulnerable to security risks and viruses, and that users can expect to encounter more apps and devices that won't work with XP.

I've received a lot of e-mail from panicked XP users - to whom I say, relax. You don't need Microsoft for technical support. You can protect your computer with a good antivirus program, like the free versions of Ad-Aware, Avast and AVG. And don't worry about apps and devices. Most software is available now in the cloud - making it compatible with any operating system - and most printers, routers and other devices you're likely to need will work with XP.

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/No-need-to-fret-over-demise-of-Windows-XP-5322509.php

Quote: rxwine

Sorry, I don't read every post on your thread and may be repeating something, but thought this might interest you. On the discontinuation of XP.

I don't know if I covered that here. But one reason XP persists is precisely Windows 8.

For all the paeans Win7 got, I'm amazed by how many long-time users miss WinXP still. I hear a lot about it at the office. I wonder what would happen if I let it be known I have an OEM XP install CD :) Probably if installed on a Win7 PC, it would fail to recognize some of the hardware...

So given many XP users don't like Win7, even though they use it, imagine what a shock Win8 is to them. I saw it when I showed the Win8 preview around.

Update 1, under that name or other, most notably possibly perhaps Windows 8.2, should be out sometime in April.

But the most important event expected for April is the announcement of Windows 9 (if they go with a number. after the Win8 fiasco, I'd go back to names, a great one woudl be "Windows START MENU).

Details on what will be in it are sketchy as yet. A start menu is a near-certainty, but details vary bewteen a rehash of the Win7/Vista/XP menu, to a new one incorporating tiles (I don't like tiles, they're hard to tell apart). I hope for a return to the Aero Glass theme, too, but fear MS is still too deep into the Win8 Kool Aid.

What Microsoft needs to do is provide CHOICE. I'm a bit heartened that Update 1 kind of does this. Just not very well. While it sets boot-to-desktop as a default if there is no touch screen, this can be unset. However, my understanding is that in PCs with a touch screen, the mouse/keybaord (kind of) friendly options, liek the title bar on M/M/W "apps," are unavailable.

I wonder, how would this work in my current PC? It does have a touch screen, but also a mouse and keybord. In the four months I've had it, though, I've never once touched the screen. I haven't even been tempted to. It is a mouse and keybaord system, and I intend to keep it that way.

I've been too busy at work to keep up, but Microsoft's Build conference starts soon. Update 1 will be released by sometime next week, apaprently, and there will be some info released on the return of a Start Menu soon. The last rumor has it it will be similar to the old Win7 menu, but with "tiles" on the right column.

We'll see. If all else fails,there will always be Start8 and Classic Shell.

One thing is that Win8 will replace New Coke as a lesson in marketing disasters, just as New Coke in its time replaced the Ford Edsel (I wonder what the Ford Edsel replaced). Arguably the late Concord belongs in this progression, or should. It was patently a failure, but millions loved it.

Still too busy, and too tired, to do much web searching. But Paul Thurrot posted this on his site:

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/threshold-revealed-microsoft-talks-future-windows

We could play "what's wrong with this picture?" regarding the start menu shown in the article (and perhaps we will, later). For now I've got one question and one complaint:

1) I see you kept the "flat" allegedly battery-saving look that killed the lovely Aero Glass theme.
2) Can I remove the tiles from the start menu?

This is more concept preview, as I understand, than a demo or even a show of upcoming features. So lots can, and will, change in the months to come. On the plus side it seems Microsoft finally got the message and will restore desktop finctionality to the desktop. On the downside, bad ideas die hard. So many of the tablet-centric "features" will remain there.

Hopefully by the time the next update or next version of Windows rolls around, there will also be a preview one can run. For now it seems to be, I say it seems, something I could live with (I hope they left the quick-launch icons available still). Certainly it looks a million times better, literally, than Windos (not a typo) 8 when it first came out.

About the very exclusive club of the biggest commercial failures ever in US history, Windows 8(.1) is definitely the newest member. So now there are three: Ford Edsel, new Coke, Windows 8.

I'm not familiar with the story of the Edsel, but of the three it would seem to be the more nuanced. I know almost all there is to know about New Coke,a nd even recall much of what ahppened at the time.

As for Win8, the military, ever scatological, has an expression for it: Charlie Foxtrot. It means CF, which ctands for Cluster F**** (I suppose as in a cluster bomb, for those familiar with them). Though the old reliable FUBAR (F****Up Beyond All Recongnition) would also apply. The list of all that MS did wrong with Win8 is so long it deserves a thread of its own (though I've probably covered it here already).

Quote: Nareed

As for Win8, the military, ever scatological, has an expression for it: Charlie Foxtrot. It means CF, which ctands for Cluster F**** (I suppose as in a cluster bomb, for those familiar with them). Though the old reliable FUBAR (F****Up Beyond All Recongnition) would also apply. The list of all that MS did wrong with Win8 is so long it deserves a thread of its own (though I've probably covered it here already).

I think "SNAFU" would probably best describe what you've been expressing ;)

Quote: Nareed

I'm not familiar with the story of the Edsel,...

Oh, it fits. Allow me =)

The Edsel was a new model that Ford pushed based off of numbers and little else. They looked at charts and graphs and purchase history and decided they needed a car that fit into a certain category - better than a normal Ford, but not quite as posh as the high end Lincoln.

So they built it. But they never showed it to the public. Never got feedback. Ran a piss poor marketing campaign. Rather than have a dedicated line to build it, the contracted out existing plants to make them, which caused even more issues with quality and reliability. It was ugly, but they had no feedback to tell them so. And they festooned it with all the latest and greatest gadgets, but the options weren't in high demand, really, and it pushed what was supposed to be a mid-range car up into the price point of the higher end Lincolns.

And they did it all in a recession.

As a result, they sold but 100,000 of them. If you were to adjust dollar value, they missed the boat to the tune of $3mmm. Three billion dollars. It was a disaster.

They "made a car the public didn't know they wanted". Or so they thought. They really just made a car the public didn't want, all because they thought they knew better.

Sound familiar? ;)

Quote: Face

I think "SNAFU" would probably best describe what you've been expressing ;)

Not really. When you cosnider WIn95, XP and 7 (mostly), the AFU is not Situation Normal for Microsoft. Though when you consider also Win98 (at first), WinME (Mistake Edition), Vista and 8, you relaize it's not unusual.

Quote:

Oh, it fits. Allow me =)

Thank you!

I've tried reading about it, and they make it seem so much more complicated than that.

Quote:

And they festooned it with all the latest and greatest gadgets, but the options weren't in high demand, really, and it pushed what was supposed to be a mid-range car up into the price point of the higher end Lincolns.

I've heard of push-button transmission and other things. The fact these never became popular in other models by any other company speaks volumes.

Quote:

Sound familiar? ;)

Very.

At that, Coca Cola had a really good idea on paper. And they did do testing which showed people preferred the taste of New Coke over Classic Coke and Pepsi. What should have tipped them off was the blind-testing nature of the tests.

Still, Coke's and Microsoft's blunders cost them a great deal more. Imagine if Ford had not only developed the Edsel, but retired the normal Fords and the Lincolns as well.

I think Windows 8 is the biggest such failure. You can see how badly the release was handled, how badly criticisms were received, how gradual the fixes took place, and how half-heartedly even this latest fix seems in many ways.

My uncle bought a new 59 Edsel and he loved it.
Had a push button transmission in the center
of the steering wheel. I always thought the car
got an unfair rep.