Windows 8

[Ray!]

I guess this adds to the above comments:

Over 600 million Windows 7 licenses sold

http://www.techspot.com/news/48906-microsoft-over-600-million-windows-7-licenses-sold.html

and:

Fast, secure and stylishly simple, the Ubuntu operating system is used by 20 million people worldwide every day.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Cheers

Ray

[Tonka]

Great post gpsti, a very good read.

[mikegq]

What's its compatibility going to be like?

I use 20-30 radio programming programs and they run mainly on xp and vista

If the worst happens and I have to get a new computer will they work on 8

Or is it going to be totally different and incompatable?

[Ray!]

I'm fairly certain that Windows 8 will be backwards compatible with anything designed for at least for XP, that's one thing that has been common with Windows for so many years. Most of the time when things don't work, it's not Windows at fault, but application developers who don't update drivers etc to be compatible with the newer versions. It depends on how old your applications are as to whether updated drivers and the like will be made available.

Cheers

Ray

[Ray!]

Here's a quite long but excellent article that describes exactly how I feel about Windows 8:

In Windows 8, the functions formerly done by Start have been spread across several locations, some in the Metro interface and some in Windows Explorer. So Windows users moving to Windows 8 will have to learn parts of Metro before they can get anything done. In some cases, common functions formerly available through a single click in Start have been buried several clicks deep within Metro.

If you're not a Windows user, it is hard to describe how disorienting this is. It's roughly equivalent to giving someone a car in which the steering wheel has been replaced by a joystick. Not only do you need to learn how to steer with a joystick, but all of the controls formerly attached to the steering column are now scattered in various spots on the dashboard. The wiper control is a lever above the radio, the high beam lights are a switch on the rearview mirror, the turn signal is a set of buttons under the speedometer, and the cruise control is a dial hidden inside the ashtray. Oh, and you honk the horn by bouncing up and down in your seat.

The car's designer will give you logical explanations for every change they made in the car, just as Microsoft can explain the reasons for removing Start. For a new user they may all make sense. But for an existing user, the removal of Start forces a huge amount of re-learning. An existing Windows user can't just sit down with Windows 8 and start using it. They'll need some sort of tutorial and reference system to show them how to use it, and to answer questions when they get confused.

And this really sums it up:

Let me translate that for you: "We're optimizing Windows for using Facebook and YouTube at the expense of performing productivity tasks." Which is fine; it's a design choice Microsoft is free to make. But it's going to have an impact on the large base of people trying to get work done with a PC.

http://www.mobileopp...-windows-8.html

I can see lots of people being very unhappy with Windows 8 and corporations absolutely refusing to install Windows 8 in their organisations (they will be the driving force pushing for modifications to Windows 8).

Cheers

Ray

Edited June 11, 2012 by Ray!

[Glort]

But for an existing user, the removal of Start forces a huge amount of re-learning. An existing Windows user can't just sit down with Windows 8 and start using it. They'll need some sort of tutorial and reference system to show them how to use it, and to answer questions when they get confused.

Let me translate that for you: "We're optimizing Windows for using Facebook and YouTube at the expense of performing productivity tasks." Which is fine; it's a design choice Microsoft is free to make. But it's going to have an impact on the large base of people trying to get work done with a PC.

This seems like sheer idiodicy to me.

Faceache can get fked as far as I'm concerned. I tred looking at it over the last few weeks to geting touch with some people that never check their emails and I can barely use it and certainly don't understand it or why the hell people are so obssessed with it. My kids literally can't go to the crapper without phone in hand to look at the rubbish.

Youtube I like. I have learnt a lot of things through that and its a great learning resource. But it works just fine on machines I have running XP, server 2008 and Win 7.

What I don't get is why you would corrupt an entire OS for entertainment purposes.

The way I see it, the people that are the ones that realy support MS are business. They are the ones that pay for licences for their machines. anything from a few to tens of thousands. The home users and a lot of the propeller heads that are going to be the most likley facecrap and you toob users are also the ones most likley NOT to pay for a licence and just download something from the net and run that.

I think that businesses and Gubbermint departments whom have thousands of machines are going to be very reluctant to install an OS that requires them to retrain their staff on how to use it. Even when retrained. productivity is going to take a massive hit till they get up to speed on it and some of them after doing things the same way for years will never reach their former productivity levels.

I do a bit of work with a charity to whom a certain medium size gubbermint department donat their computers from their sydney and Canberra offices. They get THOUSANDS of them. Literally pallet loads at a time. I don't know how many people have ever seen maybe100 pallets of computers on their own ( no cardboard boxes) staced in a warehouse but it's a pretty amazing site just in the realisation of how many of these things there are around.

This is from one Gubbermint department alone and to think of them even retraining the staff that get these machines is amazing.

The catch I suppose will be when MS cans 7 and the only available OS is windoze 8. It will be a matter of go to another OS and retrain on that anyway or spend a fortune on the new one. I wonder how MS will go with it's customer service and service contracts? That will create some powerful bad blood as well. Maybe MS will start selling server licences by the Million as that is not a great jump from XP or 7 and with a custom install, would be almost seemless.

Plus in my experience of using it just on a workstation duties machine, It's a lot more stable than anything else including 7.

I just don't understand why they are forcing people to do thinkgs their way instead of give them a choice and get have a lot more satisfied customers.

Surely to Christ they must realise not everyone is obsessed with facefaeces and why the hell would companies want their employees wasting more of their time on it? I wonder if there is a way to eliminate it or they will just block access through the network and then Fk up microsnots obsession anyway.

And besides, wasn't facewaste looking a bit Dicey as a company a few weeks back? what If the whole thing falls over?

Surely it couldn't be that hard to have an OS compatible with the previous version in operation and then offer ( at extra cost even) a facewastetube version for the Kiddies who actually need some other features they can't get on existing OS's.