Windows 8 is the first OS that made me downgrade

[efjay]

I haven't signed in to Neowin in years but I had to reply to this. As someone in IT, I think you might be missing the point. We are adaptive to change. We didn't get into this business because we hate technology or change. Why would you even be in IT if you hate computers and new software or hardware or any number of new and interesting things that it brings? It's not us you should be worried about, it's the millions of office workers, moms, grandparents, clueless teenagers, and bosses who come to US to with frustrations and problems with change this drastic and counter-intuative. Windows 8 is going to be a support nightmare, you know it and I know it. There's no intuitive interface there whatsoever, it takes ages to locate old control panel settings, the will it or won't it work attitude of mouse gestures to bring up basic function like searching or applications is a awful.

There are some really nice things hidden under all that Metro bull**** like the new Windows Explorer and Task Manager, but that's just it: It's hidden under bull**** that didn't need to be part of a desktop OS in the first place.

But we all know Microsoft will call it a success because millions of licences will be sold, because there will be no other option. Something has to go on PCs.

The millions of people you mention will adapt, just as they have adapted to their smartphones and personal tablets. And in reality, regular office users dont go into control panel or change any of their PC configurations, thats mostly for devs and programmers AFTER they have been given rights. Regular users will open up their programs like Word, Excel, Powerpoint and whatever legacy DOS program they use and get to work. Yes, there will be questions and transitioning will be rough but people will get on with it. They have before and they will now.

[Active.]

they have adapted to their smartphones and personal tablets.

And to a great extent they've done so because they enjoyed, even loved the UI. We'll just have to wait and see whether that will turn out to be true for "Metro" as well.

[WinMunkee]

Just tried Win 8 RTM on a VMware machine and honestly I could not find single thing that would make me more productive in my line work.

I guess Windows is now just for browsing, checking email and looking at full screen videos :rofl: .

Cheers

You must not have customized it to your workflow. No OS is optimized to your needs, unless you optimize it.

[Dashel]

I had hoped in these pages and pages that one of the rabidly annoying proponents would actually answer the 'why' question. Namely why for many, this is the first MS OS, ever, that they won't be recommending or running at release. Why is it again that long time MS 'fanboys' are suddenly on edge?

The Windows team really doesn't care for detail or they simply lack the expertise. They roughly implemented the general idea and pretty much stopped there.

I think its more that they hire devs that are constantly 'prototyping'. They swoon at a cool new idea, roughly implement it, then move on to the next 'fun' project with little to no follow through.

Ohnoes, Neowinz hurt meh feelings! Cool.Story.Bro

[BajiRav]

I had hoped in these pages and pages that one of the rabidly annoying proponents would actually answer the 'why' question. Namely why for many, this is the first MS OS, ever, that they won't be recommending or running at release. Why is it again that long time MS 'fanboys' are suddenly on edge?

Ohnoes, Neowinz hurt meh feelings! Cool.Story.Bro

That's because come every release of Windows there are people who don't like something that is either new or is changed and react negatively to it. There is nothing new to explain here.

[Defcon]

Productivity and efficiency were not considerations for Win 8. Making it run on a tablet, dumbing down the UI by removing all choice (based on telemetry), and focusing all efforts on Metro and not the desktop (which is a distant 2nd class citizen) were the design goals, and I'd say they have been achieved.

[PGHammer]

Only on laptops. And not all of them, and not from microsoft, from crappy oem's who reconfigure the defaults to make it seem like a pos Samsung can boot up in 3 seconds and restore documents even after you pull the power and battery with a renamed hybrid sleep. Which apparently no one else has...

Either way, its easy enough to guide them through the charms. Restarts are the least problem on support anyway, they've usually done that when they call and if they need to do it because of an install, guess what, the install will do the restart.

And Windows 8 actually requires *fewer* restarts - not more - than even Windows 7. A case in point: reloading the audio drivers (or even installing them for the first time) used to *require* a reboot in Windows 7 (Creative actually has that as the default in the Windows 8 drivers, which are carryover); however, Windows 8 no longer requires it. (That furthers the Windows 7 treatment, in fact, as most driver installs or updates didn't require reboots.)

[Dashel]

No, its markedly different. I'm asking, specifically, why this singular version is putting off many that had NO prior debate of actually running the latest and greatest. I have 'qualms' about every MS OS, not ONCE has that ever made me think yea, I'll wait for the next version.

That is the question that deserves an answer and it is a new and unique phenomenon. I can't tell you how many 20 year+ industry people I've heard that exact statement from. 'This is the FIRST new edition of Windows, ever, that I won't be upgrading to at RTM'

[WinMunkee]

Productivity and efficiency were not considerations for Win 8. Making it run on a tablet, dumbing down the UI by removing all choice (based on telemetry), and focusing all efforts on Metro and not the desktop (which is a distant 2nd class citizen) were the design goals, and I'd say they have been achieved.

This is blatantly untrue. I've been using it everyday since the Developer Preview for work, and can honestly say you are wrong.

[PGHammer]

No, its markedly different. I'm asking, specifically, why this singular version is putting off many that had NO prior debate of actually running the latest and greatest. I have 'qualms' about every MS OS, not ONCE has that ever made me think yea, I'll wait for the next version.

That is the question that deserves an answer and it is a new and unique phenomenon. I can't tell you how many 20 year+ industry people I've heard that exact statement from. 'This is the FIRST new edition of Windows, ever, that I won't be upgrading to at RTM'

And have you been listening to the mantra on *everything* since the economy turned south, Dashel? Nobody is willing to move forward - on anything. Not politicians, not corporations, not consumers - if you try, you get taken to the woodshed.

Even Apple hasn't escaped the backlash this time - both iOS 6 and Mountain Lion are getting serious woodshed time. (I'm not just talking about the OS X forums and threads here on Neowin, either - take a gander at the OS X forums elsewhere - even on AppleInsider and InsanelyMac.)

The whole economic downturn is looking the Entrenchment DLC to the original Sins of a Solar Empire.

[BajiRav]

No, its markedly different. I'm asking, specifically, why this singular version is putting off many that had NO prior debate of actually running the latest and greatest. I have 'qualms' about every MS OS, not ONCE has that ever made me think yea, I'll wait for the next version.

That is the question that deserves an answer and it is a new and unique phenomenon. I can't tell you how many 20 year+ industry people I've heard that exact statement from. 'This is the FIRST new edition of Windows, ever, that I won't be upgrading to at RTM'

Uh probably not you but there is a group of people always. There were 20 year+ industry people who had problems with XP's "fisher price interface", there were XX+ years industry people who had problems with UAC in Vista or lack of labels/classic-start-menu (surprise, surprise) in Windows 7 taskbar or people who hated(still hate?) ribbon in Office or people who hates gadgets in Vista/7. I can probably build a longer list if I just browsed old forum posts on neowin.

There is always some, don't have a false sense of whatever (uniqueness? superiority?) that this is something new or different this time round.

[Dashel]

And have you been listening to the mantra on *everything* since the economy turned south, Dashel? Nobody is willing to move forward - on anything. Not politicians, not corporations, not consumers - if you try, you get taken to the woodshed.

I'm a bit drunk and I have no idea what your references mean. What do you mean that no one is willing to move forward and those that try are punished? If you are saying its an economic condition, then there is nothing that leads me to believe that RT and deployment costs will be anywhere close to combat your fear of Android.

I still say that institutional percentage is always there Baji, but that isn't the group I'm referring to. This is a new breed of disgruntlement with the platform from the enthusiast MS sector - their core advocates.

[Boeing 787]

The great thing is Windows is no longer necessary. With apple doing well and android on phones and tablets you can live a Microsoft free life if you want too.

PS: Where I work Windows 8 won't even be discussed. We will wait and see how Windows 9 turns out.

[briangw]

The great thing is Windows is no longer necessary. With apple doing well and android on phones and tablets you can live a Microsoft free life if you want too.

Umm, yeah...no. Not if you're a PC gamer

[contextfree]

If having to access the Settings charm is a problem than that's actually a much bigger problem than shutdown/restart, as all sorts of things are in the Settings charm - network connections, volume, help (!!), PC settings/control panel, etc. Personally I don't think it's a problem.

[CG-88]

The majority of problems mentioned in this thread are so trivial in regards to the workplace, like accessing settings and **** like that.

Most of the things in this are just the same thing repeated....dont like modern-ui, cant find shutdown, productivity blah blah blah. It is everyones personal opinion obviously and how they see it but i just think that alot of people are just hating on it for no reason, optimise your workspace, spend time with it and if after all that you still hate it, dont use it :) simples

[Windows Nashville]

No, its markedly different. I'm asking, specifically, why this singular version is putting off many that had NO prior debate of actually running the latest and greatest. I have 'qualms' about every MS OS, not ONCE has that ever made me think yea, I'll wait for the next version.

That is the question that deserves an answer and it is a new and unique phenomenon. I can't tell you how many 20 year+ industry people I've heard that exact statement from. 'This is the FIRST new edition of Windows, ever, that I won't be upgrading to at RTM'

An excellent point, and it's something that the Windows 8 evangelists in this thread have never addressed.

[deanrock]

And Windows 8 actually requires *fewer* restarts - not more - than even Windows 7. A case in point: reloading the audio drivers (or even installing them for the first time) used to *require* a reboot in Windows 7 (Creative actually has that as the default in the Windows 8 drivers, which are carryover); however, Windows 8 no longer requires it. (That furthers the Windows 7 treatment, in fact, as most driver installs or updates didn't require reboots.)

Even graphics driver didn't need restart with Developers Preview and I was really suprised by that.

I'm planning to switch to Win8 as soon as it's available on DreamSpark premium, because I really like it and it has some cool features.

Only time I wanted to downgrade with Windows was with Vista, and even then I couldn't live with XP for more than a week.

[FloatingFatMan]

No, its markedly different. I'm asking, specifically, why this singular version is putting off many that had NO prior debate of actually running the latest and greatest. I have 'qualms' about every MS OS, not ONCE has that ever made me think yea, I'll wait for the next version.

That is the question that deserves an answer and it is a new and unique phenomenon. I can't tell you how many 20 year+ industry people I've heard that exact statement from. 'This is the FIRST new edition of Windows, ever, that I won't be upgrading to at RTM'

Not strictly true. Quite a lot of people blew a gasket over Windows Vista, too.

[xWhiplash]

Not strictly true. Quite a lot of people blew a gasket over Windows Vista, too.

Which did not have anything to do with the lack of drivers and support right? I never had any problems with Vista. Just like some people never had any problems with Windows ME, and just like people have no problems with Windows 8.

Also, you cannot expect people to perform keyboard shortcuts flawlessly over the phone. Sure some people might be able to do that, but I have actually had experiences where I could not get people to actually perform a simple shortcut.

It is (actually was since Windows 8 makes this a pain too) much easier to tell people where to go with a mouse instead of having them perform a three key shortcut over the phone.

I actually had to tell somebody to press the power button on their computer once, and they said their screen immedately turned to black (did not say shut down or anything). They turned off their monitors. I then corrected them (politely of course) and they said they thought the monitor was the computer.

[BajiRav]

The great thing is Windows is no longer necessary. With apple doing well and android on phones and tablets you can live a Microsoft free life if you want too.

PS: Where I work Windows 8 won't even be discussed. We will wait and see how Windows 9 turns out.

Where I work, Windows is the fastest growing platform (server+client) for our customers over last few years (along with noticeable iPad growth). I guess we can chalk it down to anecdotal usage. My company also skipped Vista but our IT was preparing deployment images with it and within weeks of 7's release - the general roll out started. The side effect of this is our IT will skip 8 and that decision was made even before this whole new UI was seen outside of Microsoft.

Which did not have anything to do with the lack of drivers and support right? I never had any problems with Vista. Just like some people never had any problems with Windows ME, and just like people have no problems with Windows 8.

UAC was single biggest lightning rod IIRC.

[FloatingFatMan]

UAC was single biggest lightning rod IIRC.

Bingo. The vitriol this single useful feature brought was biblical...

[xWhiplash]

Bingo. The vitriol this single useful feature brought was biblical...

Which indirectly relates to drivers/support. Now that companies have updated their code (or you are running code developed for XP), I NEVER see it unless I am installing something.or changing an OS setting.

Everybody I talked to did not mind the UAC since they just turned it off. They did not whine and complain for days when all they did was flip a switch.

All of the people I know complained about it being slow (which was fixed in SP1 or a performance update I think) and lack of support for their stuff.

[BajiRav]

Which indirectly relates to drivers/support. Now that companies have updated their code (or you are running code developed for XP), I NEVER see it unless I am installing something.or changing an OS setting.

Everybody I talked to did not mind the UAC since they just turned it off. They did not whine and complain for days when all they did was flip a switch.

All of the people I know complained about it being slow (which was fixed in SP1 or a performance update I think) and lack of support for their stuff.

Uh no, installation was only part of the story. I remember there was a sizeable number of people who just didn't like the idea and then there were folks who had bad NTFS permissions triggering UAC when they tried to do with anything their stuff. WHY CAN'T I USE MY OWN FILES YOU STUPID Microsoft was a very popular reaction. :) or WHY CAN'T I DELETE FILES ON MY DESKTOP was another minor variation.

[Sebass]

You must not have customized it to your workflow. No OS is optimized to your needs, unless you optimize it.

I understand that. But I am talking now that everything requires extra clicks or keyboard shortcuts for the same stuff that we do on win7.

I am not against change but change just for the sake of it it is not a good thing inmho.

I guess like Defcon says they just want it to make it run on tablets and make an OS just for consuming content which I think does it perfectly.

Another silly thing is that they should have put more effort on desktop and desktops apps to make it look more consistent with the metro iconography. I mean look for example at the recycle bin icon :woot: lol