Windows 8 Even Less Popular Than Vista 791
New submitter NettiWelho writes with even more bad news for Microsoft. From the article: "Windows 8 uptake has slipped behind Vista's at the same point after its release. Windows 8 online usage share is around 1.6% of all Windows PCs, which is less than the 2.2% share that Windows Vista commanded at the same two-month mark after release. Net Applications monitors operating system usage by recording OS version for around 40,000 sites it monitors for clients. The slowdown for Windows 8 adoption is a bad sign for Microsoft, who experienced great success with the release of Windows 7. Data was measured up to the 22nd of December, so there is still time by the end of the month for Windows 8 to claim a higher percentage of the user base."
Will Microsoft call on Burson-Marsteller to fix it (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like they've not tried [wikipedia.org] to clean the image of Microsoft when Vista was poorly received.
Incredible (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't think it was possible to make something worse than Vista, but Microsoft did it. They really are out of touch with consumers by trying to ram this crappy UI down their throats. Looks like there's a lot of resistance. 2012 wasn't a very good year for Microsoft. 2013 should be even worse.
It's just a big scam to make Windows 9 look good (Score:5, Interesting)
People clung on to XP because Vista was crap, then dived on Win7 and declared it to be the best thing ever. Those same folks aren't going to give up 7 until the hardware support starts to die off, at which point Windows 9 will appear and the cycle will start again.
Assuming Microsoft are still around to make Win9 and we haven't all had to make the choice between OSX or Linux
Windows 8 blows (Score:3, Interesting)
I use windows 7. Why would i buy or even steal windows 8. What do i get? A crappy use interface? I like my start menu thing. I dont need this tile crap.
A couple things that kept me from upgrading... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The default UI was Metro.
2. They took my start button away.
3. Multi Monitor support was changed (Task bar now goes across all monitors).
While not major, it's still very annoying.
I know you can get utilities/hacks, etc... to fix this, but I shouldn't have to. At the minimum, they should have given options to turn them back on, even if they were off by default. So now they are trying to force their way of doing things on me.
Maybe they'll do better with Windows 9...but for now Windows 7 for me.
it's not like we didn't see this coming (Score:3, Interesting)
*WE* saw it.... microsoft, of course, did not. history continues -- every other release of windows sucks hairy donkey balls.
Maybe because sales of PC have been going down (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's not dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine Microsoft may just release a patch that fixes everything into a "classic" view to gain more sales.
Anecdote alert (Score:2, Interesting)
I was at my parents' house for Christmas this year and their computer died. During the ensuing "build me a new one" phase they had one opinion they refused to budge on: no Windows 8. And they know precisely nothing about computers.
On the upshot, you can now build a surprisingly good PC for under 300 bucks without having to pay the Windows tax -- but you can also get a computer almost as good if not better because of the Windows subsidy.
Re:I actually like Windows 8 (Score:3, Interesting)
For years windows guys have been telling me how backwards us *nix types were for reliance on the keyboard. Now suddenly to try pump Wndows 8, the keyboard is a great thing.
Microsoft - the company with two left feet (Score:1, Interesting)
Although Bill Gates had had his goof-ups, but still, compare to Steve Ballmer, Mr. Gates at least managed to keep Microsoft a top-rate company
Steve Ballmer, on the other hand ... ... Microsoft has become the company with two left feet
Re:It's not dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
As it stands now, I wouldnt deploy it because it would cause too many headaches for tech support, teaching people how to use the Operating system.
Gnome team and Microsoft think tablets are super! (Score:5, Interesting)
User interface guidelines. Android is finally realizing they needed interface guidelines. Apple has done great in both OSX and IOS. But Gnome team and Microsoft seems to be ignoring every standard and going gooey eyed over tablets.
My tablet is not my work computer, not my game system, and not my media box. Its my portable content reader.
Listen to your users.
Re:It's not dead. (Score:4, Interesting)
Retraining on Linux Mint with Mate desktop might be easier. I say "might" - I'm not real sure if all Windows users are retrainable.
Re:I could have had a Windows 8 laptop (Score:5, Interesting)
I got called in to help my Mother's barely computer-literate friend with her new super-duper Windows 8 laptop.
Good grief. What a nightmare. What normally takes a few minutes with 7 (slap on Firefox and a few other progs. done) took half a day and I even had to do a factory reset when the lappy decided my user account didn't have enough privilege to run UAC ("Please enter your administrator password" - WHERE?!?!?) The funny part was when I got a call a day later telling me the machine didn't work, it was stuck on "Some picture of a skyscraper". Ah, that would be the lock screen. How do we get rid of that? Errr, move the mouse down to the bottom of the display, click and drag the picture up thus revealing the password box underneath. ARE YOU SERIOUS MICROSOFT!?!??! Yeah, I know this makes perfect sense on tablets. She wasn't using a tablet, so WTF?
Based on this one exposure I'm betting millions of average people will currently be tearing their hair out over the Win 8 monstrosity. Telling them they can download hacks & fixes & third-party tools isn't going to help. Telling them to forget half their Win 7 controls and just remember various keyboard shortcuts isn't going to help, either.
As for the Metro GUI. Good grief. I've been overlaying different-sized windows since the days of my Atari ST. Metro seems to be either full-screen, or a kind of triptych tiling system. Not so handy for anyone with a display bigger than nine inches (i.e. 99.9% of Windows users).
Re:A couple things that kept me from upgrading... (Score:5, Interesting)
As for installed crapware, it's just a right-click to uninstall. No uninstaller prompt BS any more.
No, it's not that easy. And it can never be that easy. Crapware is installed with system privileges. If you have crapware on your PC then somebody you don't trust to have your best interest at heart has been operating your PC with system privileges - before you even got it. They have professional programmers, advanced system knowledge. They can replace anything including core parts of the operating system, install keyloggers, rootkits and whatever. The standard retail consumer cannot defeat this. As an end user you absolutely must trust some of their software because you must have the OEM drivers to operate the gear. Even if you're an ideal IT pro and doing a burn an purge from verified Microsoft OS image, you still have to trust the OEM drivers that are installed with highest privilege. But the OEM has put fourth-party software on your gear, for pay, counter to your best interest - and almost certainly without inspecting it for nefarious code. This is not how you establish a trust relationship with your device or your OEM.
Windows OEMs cannot be trusted any more.
Not surprising... (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought a win 8 license since support for xp is ending, there was a decent offer and I felt I should still have a Windows virtual (despite needing it less and less).
Before buying I tried to ensure it supports a clean install and was told it does (upgrade license). The upgrade tool was supposed to offer image creation but that was missing. I was told running the tool after upgrading would let me create it and it did, but that seems a vit backwards?
So I upgraded, created the image, did a clean install... Only the license key was not accepted. Called MS, spent 30 minutes in queue, 15 waiting for the agent to find out what a virtual machine is and if it's supported and then got a working key. A bit later I had to activate, and went through the whole process again. I was also told any future install would ve the same.
All this before even getting to use the mess of an operating system that it is. I can't say I got a good taste in my mouth of purchasing the license (why does a paying customer have to have a bad conciousness?), or felt windows had become more friendly (quite the opposite). Hopefully this is the last windows I get, and I expect it is 'cause I feel really bad every time I start it up.
Re:A couple things that kept me from upgrading... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lastly, you dont need the start button if you learn how to use whats there.. Thats like complaining when going from Win 3.1 to 95. They got rid of my Program Manager I wish they gave me a way to turn it back on..
They did, from 95 up until XP SP1 ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/142255 [microsoft.com] ). Of course back then they actually had people who thought about the impact of new interface design on users:
http://www.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm [sigchi.org]
At one point in the design of Windows 95 they considered having two separate UIs, the windowed interface we know and a separate, simplified interface they thought might be suitable for beginners, and which seems to have featured a set of tiles that launched the various applications. Although the design "tested well, because it successfully constrained user actions to a very small set", it was abandoned because "If just one function a user needed was not supported in the beginner shell, s/he would have to abandon it (at least temporarily)", learning "would not necessarily transfer well to the standard shell", and "users had to learn two ways of interacting with the computer, which was confusing". I wonder if the Windows 8 design team were aware of this document..?
Re:Windows 8 blows (Score:4, Interesting)
So, what you're saying is, you'll happily pay that Microsoft Tax, so that you can play games? Interesting . . .
So what you're saying is that people will pay money for in order to do something they want to do? Interesting...
Re:Windows 8 blows (Score:3, Interesting)
> Fast start up and shutdowns.
I just tested with my brand new Core i3 with nothing fancy yet installed, start up takes 20 seconds until the desktop appears and not including typing my password. I won't consider this to be fast.
On the other hand, the Metro interface is a total disaster. I seriously considered downgrading to Windows 7. At the moment I decided to resist a bit more and spent one day customizing my interface (and kudos to ClassicShell for bringing me back the Start button).
For sure I won't assist my coworkers, as I have done for the last 10+ years, if they will buy a Windows 8 system. Not until they do the same customization I have done with my machine, which won't happen for sure. I am already suggesting everybody around me not to make the same mistake I did, and to stick with Windows 7.
And yes, I am really irritated.
Re:It's not dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't terribly tricky to script an invocation of "explorer.exe shell:::{3080F90D-D7AD-11D9-BD98-0000947B0257}" on login;
And this is why Linux will always fail on the desktop. While users have to type shit like that it will never be adopted to the masses and Windows will continue to... oh never mind.
I have actually now tried Windows 8: after my mother in law's computer broke I helped set up the new one.
Seemed a bit meh, to be honest. A bit of a random mishmash of two unrelated GUI concepts. Also she decided to remove most of the animated tiles because they're generally pointless (something I happen to agree on). We were both a bit baffled that some of them uninstall cleanly because they're "apps" and some take you to an apparently unrelated place in the new equivalent of add/remove programs because they're "programs" not "apps". It really feels like two operating systems which only barely work together.
A lot of weird stuff too, like having to find magic corners/edges that do things. It was kind of OK after a lot of random clicking around.
They also seem to have tried to implement a slightly confusing and rather ruimentary window management scheme of some sort for tiling or virtual desktops or something. It feels very primitive. I think I'll stick to fvwm.
Re:It's not dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
Astonishing isn't it? They've taken an excellent product (by MS standards) and done their best to bury it under a silly hybrid UI setup. Take 10 minutes to install Classic Shell, configure it to boot straight to the desktop (start menu enabled, hot corners disabled), re-register the file types that have been hijacked by Metro apps, and you have arguably the best conventional version of Windows to date - fast booting, integrated antivirus, upgraded task manager, ISO mounting, and a nice clean theme, etc.
Basically all the bad press could have been avoided if they'd made Metro and the start menu globally optional without third party solutions. IT departments (even if they get past the reviews) will take one look at the default configuration and its unpredictable switches between desktop and Metro, think support calls, and file the whole thing as 'Do Not Want'. That MS are already making noises about Windows Blue for 2013 suggests they've realised there's little chance of widespread corporate adoption for Windows 8.
Re:Incredible (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's deliberate. MS knows the interface sucks, and are trying to ram it down, because even though users hate it doing to can advance Microsoft's long-term goals. They are accepting a bit of user hate in the desktop OS area (Where their position is almost unassailable) in order to promote their products in the new mobile arena, where they need every advantage they can get right now.
Re:It's not dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seemed a bit meh, to be honest. A bit of a random mishmash of two unrelated GUI concepts.
I was surprised that MS didn't convert the Windows Accessories (Notepad, Calculator, etc.) to Modern apps. And then the old Control Panel was left there, but some settings are still managed through the Modern UI. As the icing of the cake, the whole new UI is just butt-ugly. These kind of glaring issues leave quite a half-baked taste of Windows 8. It feels like they slapped on the Modern UI there, but weren't confident enough to polish the experience throughly.
Re:It's not dead (Score:4, Interesting)
I have never really been that fond of Windows since I started working with Unix and Linux back in the late 1990's but this time I think Microsoft has played a game of Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic pistol.
Re:It's not dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows 8, minus Metro, would have made a great service pack though.
Re:Will Microsoft call on Burson-Marsteller to fix (Score:5, Interesting)
I just don't see everything going black box though, there is just too much need for a general purpose OS. If anything, someone will come out with a BSD variant or something. As long as the OS UI is as good as Windows 98 or better that will be good enough for businesses. (It better be a lot more stable of course.)
I simply can't see Balmer lasting much longer. They have the code to put a Windows 7 style interface in 8, they just stripped it out. All it would take is a service pack to put that back in there. They'll slap a new name on it though, like Windows 8 second edition or something, perhaps give it the windows 9 label. The board is probably making plans to get rid of him, they just need to find a replacement and give Balmer a little more rope to hang himself with. They are probably trying to figure out how Gates is going to react to Balmer getting the boot.
Re:Microsoft - the company with two left feet (Score:4, Interesting)
My understanding is that they actually promoted the one who designed metro when they fired sinofsky, Julie Larson-green. iirc, sinofsky was actually fighting to prevent metro from being the primary interface and was labeled an old stodge by his peers.