Windows 8 Release Date: October 26th 172
Several readers sent word that Microsoft has selected a release date for Windows 8: October 26th. Steven Sinofsky made the announcement today at the company's annual sales meeting. The new version of the operating system will be sent to manufacturers next month, giving them plenty of time to prepare for general availability.
For the unemployed (Score:2)
Work for an OEM call center, check.
I have a feeling October 27th, the switch will be melting from frustrated users foaming at the mouth with WTF did you do to my computer! Or what I thought this was a laptop not a tablet?
If you can take the abuse I imagine the support centers will be hiring left and right to keep up with demand.
All of my windows upgrades have gone well (Score:1)
When to buy Windows 7 PC? (Score:2)
Will they be clearanced on October 26? Or should I grab one earlier. (When do the computer makers phase-out old models and bring-in new ones? August?)
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Will they be clearanced on October 26? Or should I grab one earlier. (When do the computer makers phase-out old models and bring-in new ones? August?)
If I were an OEM maker I would have 2 versions of laptops and desktops. Ones with Windows 8 and the other imaged with Windows 7. Dell did this after 6 months when it lost sales due to Vista and offered an XP 64 bit line for home users.
With support calls through the roof and customers freaking out I bet you could make a killing if you offered the Windows 7 at retail as well.
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Better yet, offer the Win8 models at an inflated price so that the regular-price Win7 models look like a bargain. The inflated price will offset your support costs for the few morons who do buy Win8 and then call to complain.
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I worked at CompUSA back when Vista launched (believe it was a January because I remember we had a massive blizzard and the midnight launch was a dismal failure) and in the month or so prior we started rolling out the hardware with it pre-installed so that by launch night we only had a couple models that were still running XP, and they didn't last long as word got around how much Vista sucked. By the time the store had failed and was being liquidated, we had one model that was still running XP.
Of course, d
Any midnight openings announced? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Any midnight openings announced? (Score:5, Funny)
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You know.. I'm going to put Win8 on my aging Fujitsu Lifebook P1620 since I primarily want to use it in "tablet" mode. It looks pretty much perfect, and the metro version of OneNote is supposedly pretty amazing.
But, Win7 will be the OS of choice on my actual desktops.
So, maybe I'll be the only guy that likes it... :)
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You know.. I'm going to put Win8 on my aging Fujitsu Lifebook P1620 since I primarily want to use it in "tablet" mode. It looks pretty much perfect, and the metro version of OneNote is supposedly pretty amazing.
Why pay for Win 8 when I assume you have Win 7 on your P1620 unless you are one of those in the "Green parrot on shoulder brigade" :)
My son's 4 year old HP touch screen laptop which originally ran MS Vista works perfectly under Fedora 17 so why would you want to pay for Windows 8 unless you are going to buy a new PC which in the majority of cases will have Windows 8 by default?
But, Win7 will be the OS of choice on my actual desktops.
So, maybe I'll be the only guy that likes it... :)
It's not mine but then again I have been using Fedora on my laptops (no dual booting) for over four years now and in a professiona
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You, sir, win comment of the day! I cannot wait to try out your head slamming technique for myself.
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You mean that one that is just IE 10 Metrosized of hotmail.com with no other functionality?
I would not even call that pos an app.
Ubuntu 12.10 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ubuntu 12.10 (Score:4, Funny)
Just in time for Ubuntu 12.10, eh?
Yeah... Metro vs Unity, fight! And Apple is on their way to iOS X as well. I'll go get the popcorn while I watch from by traditional desktop.
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Funny, Mountain Lion's UI changes a tiny bit, but not much, while Windows and Linux/Ubuntu decide they need a revamp. Though iOS 6 is supposed to be coming out that month as well... Mountain Lion... this month or next.
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Since OS X is open-source, has anyone attempted to recompile 10.6 or 10.7 to run on PowerPC?
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By now, you might have an easier time replacing the kernel with Darwin.
Then again, probably not. [google.com]
As a guy who still has a fully functioning dual G5, I'm thinking I'll either run Linux on it, or I'm gonna have a nice little case mod coming up to house my next motherboard...
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Yes and no. You can still compile Darwin from source and I assume it's in a similar state to what's used in the latest OS X, however the WM, all the apps and pretty much everything that makes OS X isn't OSS.
Be ye trollin'?
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Since OS X is open-source, has anyone attempted to recompile 10.6 or 10.7 to run on PowerPC?
Since when has any Apple OS been Open Source?
Re:Ubuntu 12.10 (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to say it, but I think this is going to be a very profitable and successful time for Apple. People are going to look at Metro and barf, and start looking for alternatives. Then they'll think, "maybe I'll try out that Linux thing everyone's been talking about", and of course look for the most popular distro which is, of course, Ubuntu. They'll go to the trouble of trying that out somehow, see how awful Unity is, and realize that it's no great alternative to Metro. Then they'll say "screw it, I'll just buy a Mac" and go to the local Apple store and buy an overpriced computer there.
They might also try out Fedora with Gnome3 instead, but the result will be exactly the same.
This could have been a great opportunity for Linux on the desktop, but between Mark Shuttleworth and the Gnome devs, the cause for Linux on the desktop is pretty much lost.
Re:Ubuntu 12.10 (Score:5, Interesting)
KDE is good, I use it myself. And yes, the interface is indeed a no-brainer for (pre-Metro) Windows users.
The problem with KDE is that none of the leading distros feature it in a leading role. Linux is utterly dominated by Ubuntu and Fedora; act like a Windows-only person who knows nothing about Linux and google for "linux" and you'll probably find all kinds of stuff about Ubuntu, with Fedora a distant #2. There are distros that feature KDE, such as Chakra, Linux Mint KDE edition, Kubuntu, and of course SUSE, but someone new to Linux isn't going to see any of those; they'll be lucky if they stumble across SUSE somehow, amid all the Ubuntu stuff everywhere, but the others are hopeless. So, to someone new to Linux, all they're going to see is Unity, and maybe Gnome3, and that's it, and they're going to equate one or both of those with "desktop Linux". They're about as likely to learn about KDE at this point as they are LXDE or Enlightenment.
Heck, I work in a job doing embedded Linux and Android development, and my fellow Linux/Android developers all use Unity, and complain about it, but they use it because "that's what Ubuntu uses" and they want to stick with "the standard". I'm the lone weirdo for using Linux Mint KDE. If professional software engineers working with low-level Linux aren't using KDE, then not many regular users are going to either, and newbies certainly aren't going to. If they even hear about it at all, they'll just consider it "one of those odd things that a small number of highly-skilled people use, and not worth the bother for little ol' me", just like Enlightenment or WindowMaker.
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I've had a few non-Linux* people comment on WindowMaker (and AfterStep), wanting to know why more Linux environments don't use them. I love WM on older systems (P3 usually, or really low RAM), and used KDE on Fedora for a long time (and on Slackware and Gentoo at home). But, like you said, without the love from the major distros, KDE remains in the shadows.
*These were Windows Network Admins, not Joe-user
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The problem with KDE is that none of the leading distros feature it in a leading role. Linux is utterly dominated by Ubuntu and Fedora; act like a Windows-only person who knows nothing about Linux and google for "linux" and you'll probably find all kinds of stuff about Ubuntu, with Fedora a distant #2. There are distros that feature KDE, such as Chakra, Linux Mint KDE edition, Kubuntu, and of course SUSE, but someone new to Linux isn't going to see any of those; they'll be lucky if they stumble across SUSE
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Yeah... Metro vs Unity, fight!
Just in time for Xubuntu 12.10, eh? That's what I run on my clean PC.
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How come when I tried to install Ubuntu 12 on my laptop, it went khaka? I know my laptop only has 384 megabytes, but ubuntu.com says I only need 256. Maybe the CPU is too slow (P3 at ~700 MHz).
It ran better than Vista but not by much. It also failed to let me install Flash Player or Google Chome. Kept saying something about "missing installation file".
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How come when I tried to install Ubuntu 12 on my laptop, it went khaka? I know my laptop only has 384 megabytes, but ubuntu.com says I only need 256. Maybe the CPU is too slow (P3 at ~700 MHz).
It ran better than Vista but not by much. It also failed to let me install Flash Player or Google Chome. Kept saying something about "missing installation file".
Amazing a laptop with 384 MB of RAM and what is even more amazing is you could run Vista on it :)
One of my laptops (dual core, 2GB memory and originally had MS Vista) is over four years old and it runs Fedora 17 with KDE as my display manager and I didn't have any issue installing Flash player, Google Chrome and even VLC 2 which plays 10bit codecs. Ok it does run a bit slow if I try to do video editing/translation.
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>>>Earlier Debian "sucked ass" and now this
That was a joke. I was teasing the Anon.Coward Troll who claimed Ubuntu was a bug-ridden piece of junk. (Which it isn't...at least not the older 2010 version I use.)
Halloween release (Score:2)
No, I think Redmond timed it for Halloween. It won't be the first time they'd be releasing something close to that day [wikipedia.org].
cool, means a release party (Score:2)
and i can get me a free copy of Windows 8 that i can turn around and sell on craigslist, like I did for Windows 7 release.
There'll be waiting lines... (Score:2)
If rumors are an indication, the last Windows 7 license will be sold on December 21, 2012.
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Re:There'll be waiting lines... (Score:5, Funny)
You're forgetting one important fact though: OCT 26 = DEC 22
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...consisting of people who still want to grab a copy of Windows 7 before it's too late.
If rumors are an indication, the last Windows 7 license will be sold on December 21, 2012.
No way in hell!
Corporations are still mostly on XP and just starting to switch to Windows 7 now. Many other users will freak out and go to small shops to get Windows 7 installed like they did with XP. MS can't cut it off and I bet OEMs if they are smart will have Windows 7 models at retail as well. MS may want to have people shut up and not repeat the situation with XP of last decade but there is a genuine demand for obsolete software now. It works, its well tested, its stable, it doesn't play games of the
Yawn (Score:1)
Is there anyone out there who still cares what MS releases next?
I have not seen anyone using windows for years now.
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Re:Yawn (Score:4, Insightful)
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And the numbers are unfair. I use Windows for gaming and the occasional Word document. But even at work, I mostly use Linux (Debian). I am sure this is counted as Windows only.
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That depends on how you define "computing".
If by computing you mean "to determine by calculation" then you're most certainly right.
If you follow the more common meaning of "to use or operate a computer" then you couldn't be more wrong.
Gotta love that English.
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8 is not vista (Score:1)
Re:8 is not vista (Score:4, Insightful)
True enough, but it doesn't matter if the computer is stable and functioning within normal parameters if you can't actually do anything useful. Of course, it's not *that* bad, but forcing metro on desktops and laptops is absurd.
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The performance is better. But it *is* another vista or ME, you can say anything else you want, but when it takes more time to do simple tasks, that you can already complete using the start menu, then you've screwed up your UI design. That's exactly what's happened with the metro UI. I've noticed a very large push recently to try to dissuade this tech blogs, smells like paid astroturfing though.
So really if you're going to use this on a PC, like I'm going to end up having to. Either get used to keyboard
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Suddenly we all love the start menu?
I remember when it was laughed at for even being called "The start menu"
Considering the predecessor was "the tile set" and before that we had CLI? Yeah, the start menu was pretty much loved by most unless you needed a CLI, and in which case you could get around pretty easily anyway.
Time will tell, so who knows.
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Windows 8 is not Vista and is not Windows ME. By all accounts so far, performance is the same or better than Windows 7. The problems are with the lack of a start menu, Metro, and the odd windows 3.1-esque flat UI.
Windows 3.11 was a better UI than that Metro garbage.
Upgrading...no; Surface, hells yeahs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Upgrading...no; Surface, hells yeahs (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm going to spend 500 dollars for a gimp Windows RT job when I can spend the same amount and get a retina display iPad with hundreds of thousands of touch optimized apps and games and peripherals coming out the wazoo or save half the money and get a Nexus 7 which is actual portable like a tablet should be and still has a massive touch native ecosystem. Yeah, no. Windows RT is the stupidest shit I have ever seen in my entire life. You get a tablet with no apps that is called Windows but can't run all my old Windows apps. I MIGHT AS WELL GET THE IPAD.
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Why did MS have to make Metro for the desktops that don't have touch screens? Ugh.
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So will it be a trick or a treat? (Score:2)
I guess I'll never find out.
I won't be buying... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been running the Windows 8 Release Preview since it was available. I'm not that impressed. I've been in IT for almost 15 years and have tried and used every OS out there. This one feels like a letdown. As savvy as I am with tech, perhaps I'm jaded now that I've "seen it all". The last time I experienced a "wow factor" with an OS was back in 2000 with BeOS. Since then, only BSD and Linux have kept me somewhat excited about tech.
The notion that everyone is enamored or wants an interface resembling a tablet/phone device is nonsense, despite recent successes with the iPad and Android devices. I have always preferred a smallish laptop to anything else and likely always will if they keep the form factor.
Getting back on track... the Metro interface is... awkward. It feels like a suit that doesn't quite fit right no matter how good it looks.
I'm waiting for another BeOS myself. The current paradigm in all it's flavors is boring and leaves little to the imagination. BeOS didn't get any traction because it was ahead of its time. Written from scratch. Beautiful, but alas no "supply train" behind it and no one willing to un-entrench themselselves from the Wintel/Mac world. I can only hope...
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I use Linux as primary desktop and Win7 were I cannot avoid it (gaming, the occasional word document). While I consider Linux reasonable (not "good", just adequate for the job, it has its flaws), I am constantly amazed by the level of pain and stupidity that Windows and Office users are willing to endure. Example: The only good way I found to make a Windows backup was with Linux ntfsclone and dd for the boot area. Or the fact that Word and Power-point get more and more dysfunctional from release to release.
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Even though you are an AC, I will answer the last point: It is both too large vertically, and it does use this space so badly that many important functions do not fit in. That alone shows the utter stupidity of the concept. The ribbon is different to be different. It is far inferior for any professional work. Maybe MS tested it only on idiots and that is why it is such a gross mismatch to my needs.
And no, LOffice does not waste vertical space this badly. (Maybe I did some optimization here. I don't remember
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Have you tried HaikuOS [haiku-os.org] by any chance? BeOS reborn.
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One killer feature I miss from BeOS is the fact that the window title bar didn't take up the whole honkin window width. It actually looked like a tab. One that was able to slide across the "top" of the window. Proper tabbed windows may have killed the sliding aspect, but damit, I want my screen real estate back !!!
i.e. See how "Home" takes up the minimal amount of space ?
http://betips.net/wp-content/uploads/images/239.window.decor.jpg [betips.net]
MS supporting Linux? (Score:3)
Explain Metro to me? (Score:2)
While we're on the subject of Windows 8, would someone please explain the Metro interface to me, and the lack of a Start menu?
I'm serious. I tried the W8 public beta, and it felt like I had one hand tied behind my back. I don't understand why the Metro tiles are different sizes, or how to resize them. I don't understand why dragging the interface left/right doesn't 'snap' to the next page like an iPad, but instead lets me see the right half of one page and the left half of another. I don't understand why so
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Shit, people are angry that Office 2013 is not compatible with Exchange 2003.
The catch? It has not been supported or patched in years! Corporations will just use XP until 2019 and get infected over and over again. XP wont die and it will make tech support people rich in years to come after 2014
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It seems odd to hear you say that, because Vista 6.0 was a pile of bugs, but Seven (6.1) is actually quite good. My company did a long jump from XP to Seven, and I would expect most companies to do the same.
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I wish people would upgrade but most including yourself, my family, and most client sites have no reason to switch from XP.
Equipment, intranet apps, and other things being right now in 2012 only work on XP. People resistant to change and the comments down here show [wired.com] that are average Joes are astounding! My pessimism grows but hell, it might help do support more after 2014 if they keep getting infected. That means more demand which means more money just like what webmasters charge for IE 6 development these d
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Funny thing is about all those Tektronix measurement boxes (o-scopes, signal generators, spectrum analyzers) that run XP. Microsoft wanted to get in on the "ground floor" of that little venture, so they sweetened the deal and got XP on them. Now Microsoft wants to make a graceful exit from the XP world, but you just CANNOT with those devices. They are not ma and pa desktop PCs. Microsoft is going to support XP for longer than it cares to, at least in the O-Scope realm. So much for a "good idea" there, Micro
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Anyway, my point is you don't muck about with tightly integrated environments unless you have to, and there's no real upgrade path but instead a total replacement path once every little bit is available for the new system (eg. once it all works on the new MS server software with the c
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Check again?
Exchange has not been supported in several years. If you have it at work I hope you do not get infected. Time to upgrade ASAP.
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From MS themselves: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?sort=PN&alpha=exchange+server&Filter=FilterNO [microsoft.com]
Exchange 2003 Extended Support ends 8th April 2014.
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Fuck Metro, and fuck Windows 8.
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Wise words indeed.
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I wonder if the UEFI unlocking mandate extends to MS' own x86 hardware. The Surface might be a sweet machine to run Linux on! :)
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I wonder if the UEFI unlocking mandate extends to MS' own x86 hardware. The Surface might be a sweet machine to run Linux on! :)
Who knows...if i had to guess i'd say probably not, but then again there are better tablets to run linux on...unless you have some sort of x86 requirement.
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better tablets - such as? One of the few mass marketed android tablets with a keyboard dock is the Asus Transformer. For which I've seen mixed feedback re durability and build quality. Ubuntu porting was from one volunteer NZ hacker.
Battery life may be reduced but going x86 means hardware support may be better e.g. ARM SoC's don't tend to support Xorg well. Plus, being a Windows machine, it should come with plenty of RAM.
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I think that's because nvidia haven't given much information on the tegra which is the leading graphics hardware on those things at the moment.
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Except for the keyboard and the TPM chip the Surface is a clone of the Transformer Prime - and the OS was developed for actual Transformer Primes. You can already buy the Transformer Prime and run Linux on it, and you don't want the TPM chip. TPrime has a keyboard option too that has a battery extender and extra ports. Or get the Tranformer Infinity for all that and higher def 1920x1200 as well.
You didn't think they were coding for some new thing of their own design, did you? They don't have the hardwa
Internet Personal Access Device (Score:2)
Um, yeah, if I was going to make an "app", I'd make it for a real tablet. It's called the fucking IPAD.
You mean the Internet Personal Access Device [micgadget.com]?
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Windows 7 is a damn fine windows release.
Windows 8 is better than windows 7. I dont suggest you skip it. Metro is odd yes, but MS is onto something...
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>>>MS is onto something...
Can I have some? I'll just roll it in my ZigZag paper hear and light up.
Re:YASIR (Score:5, Funny)
I'll just roll it in my ZigZag paper hear and light up.
What exactly would you hear? do you anticipate auditory hallucinations after inhaling?
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He probably suspects that he'll hallucinate that Windows 8 is actually usuable instead of the worthless piece of garbage that it is in real life. NEWS FLASH MS: your users* hate Metro. Your Metro phones don't sell worth a fuck and your metro computers won't either
*Yes I get that the PC OEMs are the real customers thus the "users" terminology.
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It's exceedingly rare for me to lay any sort of praise on a Microsoft product at all here on slashdot but it does happen once in a great while; maybe three or six times in the past decade out of over 6,000 posts. It's going to happen here for a moment so if you W/E folks want to save a screenshot of a post to throw back at me later, now is the time. If you're hovering over that overrated mod you might just want to hang back for a wee bit and maybe read all the way through and review my comment history bef
Not sure if you're following along (Score:2)
I gave all of the Windows' a skip in my personal life. Never once bought one of them for my own use, nor stole it either. Frankly, if you were a Unix admin in 1982 with a graphical Xterm, Windows is still a toy for children. Even back then we were working on cloud, only we called it "grid". On my xterm I could build a dashboard to monitor an arbitrary number of hosts. The aggregate compute of those many hosts now fits in my pocket. Wasn't a big OS/2 fan either.
But these kids at Microsoft, they've at
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Well being shortly after the release of Windows 7, Apple stopped the I am a Mac and I am a PC adds. In many parts because Windows 7 was up to par with Mac OS. Just because you hate everything "Microsoft". It doesn't mean that Microsoft is making bad products... Only in your head.
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Win2K Pro was a godsend after using Win98 for a few years. To go from something that would randomly bluescreen and couldn't be trusted to run longer than 2-3 days tops, to something that I almost couldn't crash it if I TRIED... was a great feeling. I would hear people claim it "wasn't good for games" but I honestly never had any trouble running anything. In the remote cases where something was unresponsive, the ability to just force-quit and relaunch the Explorer shell without rebooting was great.
Around 200
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Well, I can sum it up the revulsion in one word: Unity.
If you've ever had to use it, you'll know why Metro is (at least IMO) the suck.
Don't screw with my desktop paradigm by simplifying it too damned much - you introduce too much complexity that way.
(and to think - my favorite WM of all time is fluxbox.)
Re:YASIR (Score:5, Insightful)
If only Ubuntu hadn't made so many mistakes in the past 4 versions, then probably many would have moved to it
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So in other words. "I am mostly a Linux User, however I keep an XP partition just in case." But because I mostly use Linux, I don't want to be bothered installing a new OS.
I have Windows 8 preview installed on my system (a Convertible Tablet) , and I really don't have too many problems with it. Although I wouldn't recommend it, unless you get a multi-touch screen too.
Wait till Windows 8.1 (Score:2)
Win8, as it is, is not ready
If they really launch it in October, well, I for sure won't want to become a paying guinea pig for M$
I'll wait till Win8.1 comes out, or Win8-SP2, or something like that
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Ubuntu = Debian + some nice new features + shit ui...
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Because one-click program launching and two-click access to your most opened files are bad things to have.
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