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Intel Windows GUI Microsoft Operating Systems Upgrades Technology

Even Windows 8 Users Prefer Windows 7 436

Posted by timothy from the 7-is-prime-of-course dept.
judgecorp writes "Windows 8 is not proving an instant hit amongst the early adopters who have got their hands on it. More than half of them prefer Windows 7, according to a survey by a Windows 8 forum. Skeptics cited fears of price and compatibility issues. Meanwhile, Intel is busily applying damage limitation to criticism by CEO Paul Otellini. Apparently he did say Windows 8 wasn't ready — but added that it was still a good idea to get it out before the holiday season."
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Even Windows 8 Users Prefer Windows 7 More

Even Windows 8 Users Prefer Windows 7

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  • Makes sense? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SirGarlon ( 845873 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @08:50AM (#41476367)
    How does it make sense to push a buggy product out the door before it's ready? It only makes sense if you want the product to tank.

    • Re:Makes sense? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @08:53AM (#41476407) Homepage

      Simple: Xmas is only 3 months away.

      • Simple: Xmas is only 3 months away.

        Don't think it really matters to MS. If a family is going to buy a PC, what difference is it to MS whether it's Windows 7 or Windows 8.

      • Re:Makes sense? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Megane ( 129182 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @11:11AM (#41478037)
        And thanks to Obama's attacks on the coal industry, Santa needs something else to put in the stockings of bad little boys and girls.

    • Re:Makes sense? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @08:55AM (#41476447) Homepage Journal

      it's _not_ buggy.

      it's the feature set which isn't ready.

    • *Every* product is buggy. Just one of those little trials life throws our way to help us grow.

      • Re:Makes sense? (Score:5, Funny)

        by AntEater ( 16627 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:48AM (#41477023) Homepage

        *Every* product is buggy.

        You, obviously, haven't installed Slackware.

      • Likely it is true that there are few if any pieces of software that are 100% perfect, but there is a huge difference in *knowing* that you are going to put out a product that *IS* defective, and when you know what those defects are, and putting out a product that you have tried your best to suss out entirely and in good faith believe is going to work for your customers. While both groups may be perfectly willing to support the product, the second respects their customer base and the long-term relationship t
    • Because no mater what ALM you use decisions to publish are always in the hands of someone who knows F*** all about anything and is receiving advice from the wrong people who are all scared of him!!!

      BTW it's pretty much impossible to release a piece of software that has no bugs

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by csumpi ( 2258986 )
      Maybe it's the new trend. Worked for other [apple.com] companies. [apple.com]

    • Re:Makes sense? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @10:16AM (#41477335) Journal

      How does it make sense to push a buggy product out the door before it's ready? It only makes sense if you want the product to tank.

      It depends on how buggy the product is, and how big you think that the first mover(or at least not-quite-as-tardy mover) advantage will be for the product in question.

      Given that (relatively) seamless online patch delivery is now an expectation, shipping a product in the 'rough but usable' stage can work just fine, no matter how much the purists loath it(and, unfortunately for the purists, that now seems to be the mark of a good launch, with 'overtly broken' being a distinct option).

      The thing that strikes me as somewhat insane about MS' Windows 8 push is not so much that it is on an aggressive timescale, they haven't released an OS that was properly baked out of the box in a significant number of versions; but that they seem to be pushing out Windows 8 more or less solely for the sake of 'metro' which really only makes sense on tablets and any other touch-focused quasi-PC oddities.

      It would seem totally sensible if they were to rush Windows RT/Metro out the door so as to get Wintablets on the shelves by Christmas(it's not as though iOS or Android started as terribly finished products, and 'ship now, then iterate' seems to have done them minimal serious harm). What seems weird is tying that to a push for Win8 on normal desktops. Rushing out a product where you currently don't have one isn't ideal; but that's how the world goes. Rushing out an unfinished product with negative buzz in the face of a (now reasonably polished) product that your customers mostly like? That's weird.

      And this isn't even like the 'XP 4 lyfe contrarians hate Vista/7 because it breaks their shitty software' problem that they had last time. IT departments have, mostly, worked it out and switched or are switching, and Win8 isn't, if you ignore the 'we shipped an entire separate shell because, uh, fuck you, that's why' part, nearly as much of an architectural break. It's just unpolished and offers nothing interesting to current Win7 users. With XP, at least, while the legacy investment was massive, XP legitimately sucked a lot and needed to go; it just wasn't going to be pretty getting there.

      • Those "touch based quasi-PC oddities" are set to sell at least 2x (some say 10x) more devices than PC's in the coming years. Apple sold more iOS devices in 2011 alone than all the Mac's they've ever sold combined.

        The fact is, touch based devices WILL be the defacto way the vast majority of users will use to access a computing device, and it just makes sense to combine all those into a single OS with a single mode of operation.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jbolden ( 176878 )

        The thing that strikes me as somewhat insane about MS' Windows 8 push is not so much that it is on an aggressive timescale, they haven't released an OS that was properly baked out of the box in a significant number of versions; but that they seem to be pushing out Windows 8 more or less solely for the sake of 'metro' which really only makes sense on tablets and any other touch-focused quasi-PC oddities.

        Well yes, that's is exactly the point, Metro or ubiquitous computing. Microsoft is starting a transiti

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tnk1 ( 899206 )

      He knows it is going to suck, but he realizes that more people will still buy it if you do it at the right time, as opposed to waiting until a slow sales period. One way or the other, it is going to get out to the general public that it sucks, so you might as well sell as many as you can before that information percolates out into the larger population.

      Game publishers like EA will do the same stuff. If it is a choice between launching later, but being a bit more ready, and launching at Christmas but selli

    • Correction... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by HerculesMO ( 693085 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @10:46AM (#41477651)

      Windows 8 isn't buggy... it's unfinished and unpolished. What is there works well.

      The desktop and metro side by side experiences make you feel like Microsoft put a lot of effort into getting the system running fast, smooth, and seamless, and then forgot to do anything with the desktop, or bring over any of the options. I posted about this yesterday, but suffice to say, Windows 8 is really great in terms of technical prowess, but the UI is unfinished, unpolished, and jarring, to say the least. And this is coming from somebody who actually *likes* Windows.

  • And the other half... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27, 2012 @08:50AM (#41476369)

    Tried to figure out where the "I prefer Windows 7" button moved to and gave up.

  • Ouch (Score:5, Funny)

    by Biff98 ( 633281 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @08:52AM (#41476381)
    Not what Micros~1 needed. Then again they've always had big problems with adoption. A dollar's worth of free advice -- Stick to Xbox, mobile, and your business segments.

  • I agree (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm one of the people that will use Windows 7 for the future in my office and in my house....

    Will give a try in the pad field but with both fingers crossed...

  • Win+X (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drfishy ( 634081 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @08:55AM (#41476443)
    Don't hate me - but I like Win8. Takes some getting used to but there are a lot of nice power features. Just the fancy new keyboard shortcut Win+X alone will get you a long way toward adjusting.
    • I also run Win8 at home. Just like I used the quick launch in XP and pinned all my apps to the taskbar in Win7, I have pinned all my apps in Win8 to the tasbar and stay in desktop view. I don't care for the simpler color scheme. It looks like windows is taking a step back to Win 3.1. Overall Win8 is not bad. I agree that it is buggy but I blame most of that on NVidia. Tried their new Win8 drivers for my video card and they would crash all the time. Reverted back to the Win7 drivers and the crashing has sto

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      Takes some getting used to but there are a lot of nice power features

      Well, "takes some getting used to" is normal for MS (it's one of the things I hate about their OSes and apps). But what are these "power features"? That does interest me, I don't mind relearning something to gain productivity, but most MS changes don't.

      • But what are these "power features"? That does interest me, I don't mind relearning something to gain productivity, but most MS changes don't.

        I've been running Windows 8 for nearly a month now, courtesy of the VLSC agreement at work. The best answer I can give to this is as follows:

        Hyper-V.

        Look, Classic Shell is a necessity to prevent you from getting a voodoo doll of Steve Ballmer and using it as a pincushion...but Hyper-V seamlessly integrates virtual machines into your computer. If you're even the slightest bit familiar with VMWare's stuff at all, the UI for Hyper-V is simple to pick up. I've been using it to mess around with a lot of differen

  • Alternating (Score:5, Funny)

    by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @08:56AM (#41476465)
    Isn't it pretty much established that, like Star Trek movies, only every other version of Windows is any good?

  • This Poll is Dumb (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mr.nobody ( 113509 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:00AM (#41476499)

    So new users before the old, safe choice they're familiar with instead of something radically new and different. How does this surprise anyone?

    Look, I had the same inclination when I switched from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. I was one of those early adopters who bought it launch day and ran home and installed it. I, and many others, had the same feelings when the Ribbon debuted for MS Office. And yes, I thought the same thing trying out Windows 8. There is always that moment of "panic" when you realize you don't know where things are anymore like you did with the previous version.

    But, each time, if you stick with it for a bit, you get familiar with new interface. You pick it up just as you did with the old one--and you even start to realize the advantages of the new layout versus the old. Sorry, Slashdot, but this is FUD and you're guilty of spreading it.

    • Re:This Poll is Dumb (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RazzleFrog ( 537054 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:06AM (#41476563)

      I just see no point in upgrading to Windows 8. Windows 7 has been the best OS I've used in the last 20 years - and I've tried almost everything.

      I agree with you on the Office ribbon thing - we went through the same thing here - but the thing is there was enough plus sides to upgrading to offset it. What exactly is the plus side of Windows 8?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Targon ( 17348 )

        There are a number of things in Windows 8 that look like they WILL be a big improvement, but it will take some time to get used to the changes. If you think about it, we have had "explorer" since 1995, so for most people, a "start" button is very natural and anything different would take time to get used to. With that said, many people are really resisting the change in the UI, to the point where they are looking for excuses to NOT make the switch. Yes, Windows 7 is the best version of Windows to date

        • Re:This Poll is Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dimeglio ( 456244 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:45AM (#41476987)

          Hanging back might, on the contrary, send a message to Microsoft to fix things up and release an OS people actually want to use.

        • Re:This Poll is Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @11:37AM (#41478401) Journal

          I'm going to sneak into your house and change the way all the doors swing. It's change and that's a good thing.

          You'll be really keen to see how I changed the toilet lid hinge!

    • Well this time there's merit to it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:19AM (#41476703)

      I find 8's new Metro UI to be genuinely worse for desktops. I gave it a chance, just like I did 7's new taskbar, but it has failed to win me over. It is not a good way for working with a desktop. My desktop is not a tablet, I do not use a touch screen. So a start menu replacer (Start 8 is my choice) gets installed.

      Also I'm sorry but it is ugly. It is a step back looks wise. 7 looks pretty slick. All the desktop composition is put to good use making it look nifty. In 8, it is just ugly. The desktop composition is still there underneath, and is in fact even improved, but it is used to render a very ugly UI. Worse still, the UI changes make it more difficult to navigate, it is hard to tell if something is a window for a separate program, or just a window under the current one. They all look the same.

      It's sad because technically, 8 is quite competent. It is very fast. Cakewalk found basically across the board improvements in Sonar (http://blog.cakewalk.com/windows-8-a-benchmark-for-music-production-applications/) and this is just their release software, not a special 8 build. So it looks like under the hood, 8 is a good OS. However its UI is truly a step back and the UI is the first thing most people notice.

      It isn't a horrible OS, but it is worse than it should be, all on account of them wanting to try and use their desktop and server OS to push tablet sales.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        This could have been copy and pasted from a discussion about Unity

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        If you don't like the new UI it's still faster typing the first 3 letters of the app you want than it is digging through a start menu. Or you can just switch to the desktop and use icons there.

        There really isn't a single thing better about the old start menu over the new setup besides you and everyone else doesn't want to take five minutes to figure out how to use it properly.

        I have moved all the BS I don't like to the right and have my most used programs on the left of the UI.

        The only thing that bugs me is

    • Maybe it's the schizophrenic nature of Windows 8 which is problematic. This is something Windows never had before. Having two UIs can be rather confusing and you do need to learn both ways of performing simple tasks like printing, saving or opening a document.

    • It doesn't help the OS when the default design of it looks like I just turned on all the Accessibility options.

    • I wasn't planning on upgrading to Windows 8. I have plenty of Windows 7 licenses (though maybe I should get one more just in case? Before they stop selling 7?) Anyway. I played around with some of the public trials and didn't like it much. Could you please let me know what you think the advantages are? I'm intrigued. When I first tried 7, I was instantly satisfied with the way the taskbar worked, etc. I was instantly sad that I was stuck on XP at work. I had the exact opposite feeling with 8. So what
    • I'm part of the minority (my impression, anyway) who thought the ribbon was a great improvement immediately. But this OS change doesn't appear to be a play to improve a desktop experience, it looks like a play to regain relevance a consumer market that has widened to include those who were not interested in desktop machines.

      I think the misjudgment is that there are two markets - desktop and mobile/touch - that are being lumped into one. Design for both, dammit. 8 is going to be nice for tablets, I truly b

    • ...and you even start to realize the advantages of the new layout versus the old.

      Cattle in a slaughter house get used to their digs until the "big day".

  • Microsoft has proved to be able to deliver high quality software products.
    Namely, the Office suite (especially Excel), the flight simulator and I think a few more.
    When the operating system evolution went past the plain old command line (aka DOS), then Microsoft has been successful only as long as it's been novelty.
    Apple did it far better as far as the UI is concerned.
    *BSD and Linux-based OSes are much better in the overall operation.
    So, Mr. Soft, get back to where you once belonged!

  • Windows 7 Will Be Around for A While (Score:5, Insightful)

    by andy16666 ( 1592393 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:06AM (#41476565)
    Something tells me that Windows 7 is here to stay, at least for the next decade or so. I can't see a lot of people switching any time soon.
  • It just needs to get rid of the Metr... I mean Modern interface if you don't have a touch sensitive screen or at least give us the option of using a traditional menu interface. Just give us a revert to desktop & start menu and I'll be happy. On the other hand they've also trimmed quite a bit of fat and at some things it's a shed load faster.

    /2penceworth

  • I am using W8 prerelease in a work environment and it beats W7 on many aspects (I have a choice to work under XP/W7/W8 - daily system reloads for testing purpose) - speed for one. Search feature appears better but still cumbersome.
    There are some quirks - closing/starting individual programs in multiple instances, the silly desktop interface. Guess it will be ironed out in final.

    It appears to be basically a W7 with some improvements.
    From what I read it will sell for $ 60 or so.
    Definitely worth (IMO) getti

  • Let the SlashFUD Continue (Score:5)

    by Toreo asesino ( 951231 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:16AM (#41476665) Journal

    There's plenty of people on Win8 already. It does work, it is different (faster for one), people don't like change, and Windows has changed of course. If you don't like the metro UI don't use it. Where's the news here?

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Can't say I miss the start menu at all, haven't really noticed Metro being in the way or even there. Got 3 monitors, pinned my apps to the task bar, productivity is exactly the same as when I was on Win7 yesterday.

    Time will tell I guess, but so far so good. I have no choice in running it as I own a computer shop and the general public are going to start coming in with problems at some point and I need to know how it all works!

    I'll be leaving my home machines on Win7 for the foreseeable future. Kids n gi
  • prefer WinXP, and WinXP users prefer Win9x, and Win9x users prefer Win3.1, and everybody prefers windows would just get it right someday. (hint: they never will)

    this message brought to you by the GNU/GPL

  • Good news for Surface!? (Score:3)

    by Simon Brooke ( 45012 ) <stillyet@googlemail.com> on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:38AM (#41476899) Homepage Journal

    From the article:

    There was some good news for Microsoft from the survey though, as the Windows 8-based Microsoft Surface was more popular than Android tablets and the iPad. Around 35 percent of respondents said the Surface would be their tablet of choice.

    Right. Around 35% of Microsoft fanbois on a Microsoft fanboi site would prefer Surface to Android of I pad, and that's good news for Microsoft? If they can't get more than 35% of their own fanbois on board, it's dead.

  • And this is surprising because...?? (Score:3)

    by zarmanto ( 884704 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:40AM (#41476929) Journal

    The notion that many or even most users of a new and largely untested (insert any-fracking-thing here) would prefer the one they were using and were comfortable with previously over this new and unfamiliar experience, is nothing short of blatantly obvious. Likewise, the notion that any new complex system is going to be completely perfect on day-one of release is utterly ludicrous. Crud... I'm a Mac user, and I'm not in the slightest surprised to hear that W8 users might want to go back to W7, any more then I would be surprised when any given Windows user who has migrated to a Mac expresses certain regrets over that move, now and then. Growing pains always suck... and in the case of W8, there's not really any seasoned users around, who might be able to help navigate through this new territory.

    The real test of W8 will be to conduct the same type of survey a year or two from now, to see if switchers who have been using it for awhile still want to go back. Vista very (in)famously failed that test, which is what kept XP around for so long... but trying to conduct such a test now, on W8 early adopters is basically the same thing as testing to see if water is still wet.

  • It's a paradox: good products sell less (Score:3)

    by concealment ( 2447304 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:41AM (#41476939) Homepage Journal

    This is the same paradox Microsoft struggled with on Windows XP: if you make a really good product, people will buy it once and buy nothing else.

    If you wonder why Microsoft makes its money selling Windows with new PCs, this is why. Buying a new PC is the only time most of us buy an operating system.

    Look for them to go to a subscription model soon, with different UIs being options on a constantly-refined code base. It's about the only way to make money outside of new PC OS sales.

    I imagine this is the same reason that every car manufacturer hasn't re-tooled and started making those old VW bugs. A car that runs forever is a bad product.

    • Strangely enough though, modern cars are way more reliable. The thing about those old VW bugs is that time shook out all the really bad ones and those were easy as hell to repair.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Gee, maybe if they had listened to their users... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gestalt_n_pepper ( 991155 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:53AM (#41477081)

    And just extended the Windows 7 shell so it had a "Tablet" mode with some sort of auto-detection, they might have kept the desktop people happy AND the tablet crowd happy - just like the actual users suggested on the Windows forums, again and again and again....

    Microsoft, missing the obvious since the 80s.

    Next up? Microsoft ignores 3d printing until Linux dominates the field!

  • Low resolution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jones_supa ( 887896 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @09:58AM (#41477121)

    Just yesterday I installed the final version of Windows 8 from DreamSpark to a netbook just for fun. The result? It actually ran smooth, but none of the Metro apps could be run due to the 1024x600 resolution. Not a big loss, but I was slightly surprised that they actually completely skipped us netbook-connoisseurs.

    As a sidenote, it was funny how in W8 many of the texts have been changed to a casual, "user-friendly" style. "While we set up your stuff, please enjoy a pizza. Meanwhile we'll send some info to Microsoft, but you can change this later."

  • Making UI uniform across all devices is a risky strategy. If consumers, familiar with Windows 7 & XP, hate Windows 8, how are they going to be sold Microsoft's new phone on the strength "it's the same as our new PC desktop" ?

  • Touch Screen (Score:3)

    by Larry_Dillon ( 20347 ) <dillon.larryNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday September 27, 2012 @10:06AM (#41477231) Homepage

    Most of what I see in Windows 8 is a touch screen-centric interface. If you have a tradition desktop with a keyboard and mouse, it looks like a Pre-School, Fisher-Price interface.

    Microsoft sees tablets and touch-screen devices as being the way of the future and desktop PC not shipping the their previous volumes. This may be true, but dumbing down the PC even more to accommodate touch-screens is not the way forward.

    • Re:Touch Screen (Score:4, Interesting)

      by CosaNostra Pizza Inc ( 1299163 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @10:26AM (#41477445)
      It may be true that mobile touch-screen devices are the way of the future but, desktop/laptop systems are never going away (or at least, not for a very long time). Mobile devices are great for web browsing, short texting and reading emails but for productivity applications, you need a desktop. In other words, if you want to author Word Documents, create web pages, create PowerPoint Presentations, create and test code for applications (including mobile apps), do graphic design, etc, you need a desktop system. Also, what works for touchscreen, on-the-go devices doesn't necessarily work for a laptop/desktop. I guess Microsoft lost sight of this when they tried to create one operating system to rule them all.

  • So let's get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PortHaven ( 242123 ) on Thursday September 27, 2012 @10:25AM (#41477433) Homepage

    Users experience the most radical UI change since DOS added Windows. And shockingly, 53% percent prefer the older more familiar Windows 7.

    You know what this really means folk? Microsoft actually succeeded. If you can get 47% (or just shy of half) of users to prefer a new completely radical UI experience. You've done something really really right. As I'd expect 80% to prefer that which they're familiar with and have used since 1995.

    Let's use our brains, and look at this data for what it really is. A measure of a decent amount of success. 50/50 on a new experience is good. Heck, probably didn't have that much higher support when XP or Vista came out. And those were incremental changes.

    • It seems that everyone here hasn't actually read the article (yourself included). First, to just address your post while 53% answered their favorite Windows OS was Windows 7, only 25% answered that their favorite was Windows 8, with the other 25% answering Windows XP or other.

      However, when asked "Which OS have you used before" only 26% answered they've even used Windows 8. This is not even a survey of only windows 8 users. 74% of the people answering this survey have not even used Windows 8. This is even

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