Windows 8.1 Rolls Out Today 398
The newest iteration of Windows has begun rolling out, and is winning positive reviews. (Here's an in-depth review from Ars, and a more concise one from Wired — both give 8.1 a thumbs-up).
Kelerei wrote with the above-linked TechDirt article on the release, noting that it is a staged rollout rather than global. Starting this morning, though, 8.1 is available to some customers. Kelerei writes: "The upgrade is optional (and free) for existing Windows 8 users, though if one looks at the changes, it's hard to imagine why those already on it wouldn't upgrade."
Also at Slash BI.
Meh (Score:3, Interesting)
Just when you thought it was safe.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows 8.x is back, and this time, it's personal.
Or it feels that way. I've been working with the Windows 8.1 RTM. Many more things seem to break on the Windows 8.1 RTM that did on Windows 8. Mayhem ensued. Kiss your SQLE 2005 goodbye if you haven't already. Change your Setup.exe's to Vista compatibility if you don't want them to take an hour to install. Other than that, no worries.
Win8 as a UI vs. an OS (Score:5, Interesting)
Before everyone starts bashing on Win8 (even though it does, to some extent, deserve it), I feel obligated to state:
The OS:
1. Performs better than Win7 (for me)
2. Has been perhaps the most stable iteration of windows (for me).
The UI:
Is horrible in terms of the default layout. Adding back in a 'normal' start menu (via Classic Shell, etc) and turning off the charm bars are key to making it a usable GUI, IMO.
With the above 'tweaks' the biggest thing I miss comparing 7 to 8 is the loss of being able to search files directly from the search bar. Perhaps that' some option/tweak I missed somewhere along the lines.
Will I try 8.1? If I can do it for free, yes. Will I give them money for it? NO!
Re:DO NOT WANT (Score:5, Interesting)
Somewhat sadly, after a HD failure, we loaded up Ubuntu on the wife's laptop. While it did everything she needed, she really just didn't like it, and things like Skype just didn't play nice. (Which was sad, as I was working out of town for about a month and wanted to see her and the kid).
That said, once it gave up the ghost, we picked her up a replacement laptop with Win8. She wouldn't let me tweak it, but somehow she can handle the default Win8 with Metro better than Linux with KDE, Gnome, or XFCE. *shrug*
Re:Meh (Score:4, Interesting)
Cupcake pans are quickly going out of style. Thanks in part to all the shitty Microsoft cupcakes getting baked recently.
This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been (Score:5, Interesting)
This is sort of what Windows 8 should have been to begin with. What this doesn't do is fix the issue with the missing Start MENU. The result is that every time you need to load an application through the menu you are forced back into the abomination that is the Metro interface. This is a deal breaker for the enterprise and shows Microsoft's continued contempt for their customers and what their customers need.
A tablet interface has no business on a desktop and Microsoft should have made it completely optional. Fixing boot to desktop was a half hearted start to be able to say they were listening to feedback - sort of. However the stunt with the Start Button instead of the Start Menu was a slap in the face to the enterprise and large OEM's that have been begging Microsoft to restore the Start Menu.
Sales will continue their worst downturn in history since the advent of the personal computer. OEM's will continue to lose money hand over fist. Enterprise customers held with contempt are evaluating third party vendors they never would have considered before. If you force people to use a new interface regardless, than it's an opportunity for your customers to pick what that interface is going to be. Sales of Mac's to the Enterprise have hit record highs, Linux is breaking through where it never did before. People are even toying with Chromebooks.
Not much improvement; drawbacks continue (Score:5, Interesting)
1. No improvement in user interface. Touch sucks on the desktop and Microsoft knows it. A Start button without a Start Menu is useless.
2. Metro style apps are very painful to deploy in the Enterprise; even for those with Subscription (Dis)Advantage.
3. Still not immune from viruses and worms - needs continuous stream of patches; customer remains at the mercy of Microsoft; like the forced ditching of XP which works perfectly fine.
4. Many existing licensed software such as SQLE are not supported in 8 series; so all that money is wasted expenditure.
5. Still no native support in the OS for cameras; SIM cards, etc. even Android is better in that respect despite being minuscule in size compared to 8.1.
The list of drawbacks continue; nothing to write home about; despite these paid shill reviews.
Re:Ubuntu 13.10 (Score:4, Interesting)
Meh, given my feelings about the direction Ubuntu's desktop environment has taken over the past few years, I was already not paying attention.
I'll be somewhat more interested when the Linux Mint derivative of Ubuntu 13.10 comes out.
no no no! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the biggest lie I have ever heard. Now you search your computer for vacation photos and get bombarded by bullshit Bing links. The start menu still doesn't exist. I'm pretty sure it still takes a computer engineer to find the shut down button. It's absolute garbage.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
I've normally considered myself fairly pragmatic, and while I've run Linux happily for well over a decade, I totally get why it's not a practical solution for most. Interesting thing is, for the first time since.. forever, I actually feel like I can recommend Linux to my non-technical friends. The situation that's coming up a lot:
"I run windows XP, I tried windows 8 and hated it, what the heck am I supposed to do when they stop supporting XP".
Gaming is still the big sticking point (though even that's improving a lot), but for my "facebook and email" friends, throwing mint on there (or whatever the current user-friendly distro of choice is) is becoming a realistic thought. One in particular has a computer that's barely capable of running XP right now, so I might recommend it to her as a trial.
The other big unresolved sticking point has been attachment to specific software. In the case above, she has used some ancient version of "print master gold" for a while and would very much like to continue doing so. It's this kind of thing that we tend to shrug off that keeps people from switching, but at this point it probably won't work on windows 8 anyway, so nothing to lose, and might be able to make it work through wine..
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
That's quite silly. Considering this brings back the missing features that everyone was missing like a start button and boot to desktop. This puts it on par and better in many ways than Windows 7.
The start button does not doing anything useful. And its still missing the Start Menu, and I very much prefer Aero over the ugly flatness of Windows 8 metro interface.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Interesting)
Honestly, it's fine. I rolled out 8 (plus Classic Shell) to about 150 systems and they've been trouble free. My power users like to whine about having to go look for that's now split between Control Panel and the Settings modern app, but power users always whine about things and I don't care. For every person who moans about something that moved, I have at least one compliment about how fast their computer seems now. My less-experienced users actually do pretty well with the start screen that puts the three or four applications they're supposed to be using in a nice, huge tile right in front of their face.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Interesting)
My power users like to whine about having to go look for that's now split between Control Panel and the Settings modern app, but power users always whine about things and I don't care.
It's still a rather unelegant split. If Microsoft wanted to go with the Modern UI, they could (and should) have implemented the classic Control Panel in its fullest, inside the Modern UI. Also some of the Windows Accessories are still missing a Modern UI counterpart, including Notepad! These things don't make sense. They didn't do the proper integration work and that's why the new UI still sometimes looks like a taped-on quick tech demo.
Re:You'll pry Windows 95 from my cold dead hands! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Meh (Score:2, Interesting)
That's quite silly. Considering this brings back the missing features that everyone was missing like a start button and boot to desktop. This puts it on par and better in many ways than Windows 7.
The start button does not doing anything useful. And its still missing the Start Menu, and I very much prefer Aero over the ugly flatness of Windows 8 metro interface.
I have a Windows 8 laptop, and spend close to no time in metro, almost all in normal windows desktop mode, and then it is a better Windows 7 than Windows 7. The best thing about 8.1 isn't the start button, but boot to desktop. Now I will spend even less time in metro. Pin all your most used programs to the taskbar (gives additional right click functionality as well). And use Win-X (or right-mouse-click corner if you don't like keyboard shortcuts) for a power user menu with direct access to control panel, settings, search, command prompt, run, etc. etc.).
Re:Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking as an IT person with 30+ years experience who is mainly a Linux guy but likes XP and Windows 7, I only ditched my last copy of XP (excluding virtualised ones) about 6 months ago and moved to Windows 7.
Ultimately, I like Windows 7, it's as reliable as XP (mainly because I never found XP to be unreliable) and a lot slicker on newer hardware, but then XP was starting to get clunky with newer machines.
But I hated Windows 7 when I first started with it, it seemed that stuff (especially in Control Panel) had been moved around for no readily apparent reason and a couple of months to comfortably find everything I wanted to as quickly as I could in XP.
My point is that it took even an IT geek a couple of months to get used to a new OS, so why is this any different for "Joe Sixpack" ditching XP and moving to, say, Linux Mint with it's Cinnamon interface that is very similar to the XP layout.
It's all just about familiarity and I am sure every Microsoft-focused person out there suffered some initial infuriation when they fired up Windows 7 for the first time and saw how different a lot of it is from XP. Yes, we all got used to it and like it now, but that time to familiarise was still there, even if you choose not to acknowledge it.
I was at an MS developers event last year... (Score:2, Interesting)
I still have my free copy of Windows 8 Pro that I've yet to install. Some of us were talking in the Elevator about it's over all UI changes and their argument made sense: develop a single consistent UI across all their platforms from Desktop to Notebook, to tablet, to phone to Xbox, oh and we expect that all future PC's will have touch screens.
It was that last part that was the gotcha. If Touch screens on laptops and desktops were really all that great, Apple would have been doing it years ago. The fact that they don't should tell you something. And having previously written point of sale software I can tell you that many of our clients tried touch screen terminals and often times went back to keyboard & Mouse.
The other huge problem on the desktop side are that business people have been trained on windows with their start menu for 15 years. Changing that presents a huge and massive disruption in workflow costing lots of money in retraining time.
Now if the metro UI was available at the touch of a button, much like Launchpad on the mac, but still had the windows 7ish start button underneath, that could of worked.