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Microsoft decides to double down on stupid. New Windows 8 pricing.
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SheHateMe
Diamond Member
http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
There you go.
Windows 8 is fine. If you don't like the new menu, you can easily just fix it and continue using Win8.
There you go.
Windows 8 is fine. If you don't like the new menu, you can easily just fix it and continue using Win8.
destrekor
Lifer
Even if you break it down properly, it still doesn't entirely hold true:
95 - great
98 - great (Second Editions can be ignored here) (95 v1.1)
ME - ugh
XP - eh... not at first, but grew very popular for various reasons (2000 v1.1)
Vista - had major issues at first, for some, but turned out to be great
7 - amazing (Vista v1.1)
8 - opinions vary (Vista v1.2/ 7 v1.1)
2000 (Windows NT 5.0) was an Enterprise-only release in the eyes of most. At that time, and at the time of ME, the NT kernel still wasn't in the Consumer versions. They thankfully addressed this, the split-track OS versions disappeared, NT became the standard, and hell.. now the NT kernel is in literally all Windows releases. The UI approach they've done this with offends some, but they're actually taking the best possible path forward.
What they screwed up was the inability for users to configure the UI in Win8. There should be a "backup" option, similar to, say, Gnome 3 Shell offering a Gnome Classic fallback. Give users the option for a Windows Classic fallback, and all will be good.
Especially once the promo price drops, Win8 adoption for existing installations will drop - but there's a chance a Classic Mode option may save face a little.
If they introduce a Classic Mode, they can get rid of it in a release or two and not suffer any serious fallout with customers.
But right now, Enterprise adoption will obviously be very low since it's the new OS. But since IT Admins may also very much hate the new interface, and may see the enterprise users as also loathing it, when Win8 is late in life it may still suffer low enterprise adoption.
Considering the past three releases have been point versions of the kernel, I am actually kind of interested to see what will happen with Windows 9, if that's the next release. Perhaps the next one will be Windows 8 SE?
If the next one is NT v6.3 (i.e. Vista is 6.0, Win7 is 6.1, Win8 is 6.2), it may entirely depend on the UI approach or marketing, or be determined by success of Windows on other devices (Windows RT, Win8 on tablets, etc) if MS chooses to go the stubborn route and try to force adaptation to their new ideas.
At this point, Windows 8 is actually quite a bit like Windows XP (not at all like Windows ME). Many hated the new interface design (but a Classic theme was available), and many hated how different settings got shuffled around and changed up. On the consumer side, it was very different - but I don't think much changed between Windows 2000 and XP in terms of where settings were. XP was essentially a tweaked and improved Windows 2000, with a new but godawful dress. Windows 8 is basically a tweaked and improved Windows 7, with a new and shocking dress that, like fashion, may be here to stay, or may be shot down.
XP performed terribly during initial sales metrics, but ended up being a beast in the market. I can't say I expect that for Windows 8, since, as opposed to XP's timeframe, the NT kernel has been around the block for a few laps. I like it, but ultimately it's a minor improvement (in the grand scheme of things) over Windows 7.
If the next version of Windows is NT 7.0, I'd say we can expect lackluster sales for that. There will be driver/kernel issues, like Vista, so early adopters will have a bit of pain.
Seeing as they just got Windows NT 6.2 to a few devices that were never privy to the party, including support for an entirely different CPU instruction set, I would be extremely shocked to see NT 7.0 up next. Windows 9 being NT 6.3 makes a fair bit of sense, and provides a much better chance to recoup any negative views attached to Windows thanks to Windows 8. If they follow up Windows 8 with what would appear to be another rehash of the Windows Vista pains (early adoption driver pains caused all the problems in the end - I loved Vista once I had stable drivers), Microsoft would probably be in for some trouble. Two critically-despised OS releases in a row? That would be a bad time to be a stock holder.
NT 6.3 would probably be the best time to start up a decent yearly-upgrade program if they do go ahead with the Windows Blue project. Get two or three cycles of that with cheap prices, and probably have a major release of NT 7.0 attached to a higher price.
But hell, I still don't know if Microsoft will really end up trying that route - I'm having a hard time imagining how that will integrate with the enterprise world.
destrekor
Lifer
What, you on Vista?!
I mean, I loved Vista on my desktop during college. Once the driver situation was dealt with, it was a rock solid OS that was far my stable on my system than XP.
But once Windows 7 came around, and I used it a bit, I could not ever see myself settling for Vista. Like I said, Vista was great - but 7 was divine. So, so much faster, much better with resources. If you really utilize your computer at all, Win7 is definitely what you should have as opposed to Vista.
I find dealing with Vista painful once I've adjusted to 7 on all my desktops. It really does have that much of a difference.
Windows 8 is like that, but to a slightly lesser degree. It's snappier on all fronts than Windows 7, but not as much of a major difference between Win7 and Vista.
If I were on Vista right now, had knowledge of Win7, and with that the knowledge of Win8, and couldn't get Win7 free like I did, I'd just bite the bullet and get the Win8 deal while I could.
I mean hell, I got the Win8 deal when I had Win7 on my desktop, and don't regret the upgrade one bit, and am glad I did it.
Still debating throwing it on my laptop, since it's so old it's almost not worth it. Well, it's almost entirely not worth it, and don't expect to end up buying it, but it's crunchtime to figure out if I'd ever regret not buying it now while it's cheap (and I don't expect to be able to get it for free any time soon).
Hugo Drax
Diamond Member
99% of PC users do not upgrade operating systems, they buy the 399 special from dell with free monitor & printer. The OS that came with is the one that will still be on it when they dump it and buy a new system.
The 99% of the PC user is not going to spend 120 dollars and all the hassles to upgrade a 399 desktop/laptop because for the 99%ers if it aint broke don't fix it.
The 99% of the PC user is not going to spend 120 dollars and all the hassles to upgrade a 399 desktop/laptop because for the 99%ers if it aint broke don't fix it.
destrekor
Lifer
Big enterprise businesses will always be, at best, 1 OS release behind. When Win8 went RTM, the Army had just started pushing out Win7 images.
Makes sense: at that point, patching has slowed down and things are settled down and stable.
A great many enterprise users are still probably, as you noted, on XP or Vista.
Cost, need, and age of desktop systems factor into the equation. If they upgraded to Vista, perhaps that was the second or third upgrade on that class of computer. Why budget a Win7 upgrade when they realize they should start planning on new computers? It might be a few years before they finally go ahead with the new computers, but they is probably little need for new software.
That's where "need" comes into play the most.
Small businesses will be most likely to keep up to date, but still most will probably have just recently moved to Win7 with no plans for Win8 for the foreseeable future.
And for those places, backlash against Win8 has no factor in that decision - they're just as likely to move to Win8 in a year or two (or three or four) whether it's highly praised or panned.
Wyndru
Diamond Member
Yeah guys, you are weird for not buying an OS, then installing a 3rd party piece of software and making tweaks to revert it back to the previous version OS look and feel and losing WMC!
:hmm: Oh wait, that whole statement was weird, nevermind! 😉
Wyndru
Diamond Member
Yup, all of the school districts I work at are Win XP or just recently Win7. I've already been given the permission to skip Windows 8, because everyone agrees that there is no reason to have a touch inspired OS in an environment that has not touch capable hardware. Unless Windows incorporates a GUI decision feature. There is no way we are installing 3rd party software to a fresh OS to disable the Win 8 start screen.
Win95 wasn't that bad but ME and Vista suck the BIGONE.
Spike
Diamond Member
I threw it on my newish laptop (Lenovo Y580) and really enjoy it. Yes, it takes some getting used to and yes, it's better with a touch screen (it's more fun on my wifes surface) but it seems to work well and it's definitely faster than Win 7. With an SSD I did not know if I would be able to see much of a difference but apart from the huge speed up in start and shutdown (already fast before) programs seem just a little bit quicker.
I bought a few more copies while it was cheap for use later. If, after 6 months or so, I decide it's not worth upgrading all my windows 7 pc's (5 at last count) then I'll just give the copies of 8 to my family, they are about due for an upgrade anyway.
I bought a few more copies while it was cheap for use later. If, after 6 months or so, I decide it's not worth upgrading all my windows 7 pc's (5 at last count) then I'll just give the copies of 8 to my family, they are about due for an upgrade anyway.
Most of the reports of Win8's speed that I've seen emphasize its startup speed, and that's mostly due to the fact that unless you change the default settings, it hibernates rather than stopping and starting cold, so it's not really comparable. And it's a feature I won't use, because I like to keep my boot partition as small as possible, and multi-gigabyte hiberfiles don't lend themselves to that.
The main change I've noticed otherwise, other than the main interface being infuriatingly unintuitive for a desktop customer who has used Windows for decades, is there is no "undo" command for the File Explorer. Ctl-Z works sometimes, and sometimes not.
If I had a touch screen, maybe I'd think it was worth it, but I don't. I'm not sure it's even worth the 30 bucks it cost me on the Christmas special, but I figured it was worth a try. I tried it, and now I'm back on 7, and plan to remain there.
fry's has 8 pro system builder for $109 right now, seems like a good price. especially if they're going up soon.
i remote desktop so like pro.
anyway, MS announced that the $40 pricing was only good through jan 31 at the get go so this shouldn't be a shock to anyone.
i remote desktop so like pro.
anyway, MS announced that the $40 pricing was only good through jan 31 at the get go so this shouldn't be a shock to anyone.
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Jaskalas
Lifer
You should know we can't listen.
techs
Lifer
techs
Lifer
I can't argue with that. I put the last release candidate on a crappy netbook and it ran great.
destrekor
Lifer
For the bolded point:
Undo is easily accessible. It's just tucked out of sight at first.
On the title bar, near the top-left corner, you have what they call the Quick Access Toolbar. If you click the drop-down arrow, you'll see Undo and Redo (rename is even there). If you want those commands to be always visible, you can click them and they'll be in that bar.
For the shut down thing - it's not pure hibernate.
It's a hybrid shutdown that utilizes hibernate for rarely-changing drivers and other kernel-related things. This works wonderful (unless you care about the storage issue), because for most major drivers, pure restarts are a good idea and thus the hibernate file gets wiped. But on shutdowns, it'll keep those resources pooled up in the file so that the next time it turns on, it boots faster.
I have a multi-monitor setup, so maybe that makes it easier to work with, but I find working in the Metro interface with mouse/keyboard pretty damn easy.
It's a little unintuitive to start with, when you are completely new to the whole thing, but once you've danced with it a little, the whole system becomes intuitive.
FWIW - I avoid the system Control Panel in the Metro interface, because it's fairly worthless on the desktop. The standard CP is easy accessible by right-clicking the original start-button location.
Searching for anything, across everything, is so simple and fast. Press the Windows key or otherwise load up the start screen, start typing what you want. If it's an app, you'll find it right away. If it's a System configuration option, one click over on the right-side will bring up results that match or are related. You can search the Files right there too, as well as anything that can be found in any of the Metro apps, including Mail if you use it (I do for my gmail accounts - though I'll still load up Outlook for more intensive uses), Skydrive, OneNote (on the desktop, the true OneNote application is easily superior, but quick stuff works great), and the Store in general.
destrekor
Lifer
Damn. Now you're making me reconsider putting it on my "Pentium Dual Core" Acer laptop from yesteryear.
It would make playing around with my Windows Server 2012 install THAT much easier. The WS2012 RSAT (Remote Server Admin Tools) are only available on Win8. Seeing as WS2012 is just a testbed I've got dual-booting on my desktop, I can't use my existing Win8 install to use the tools.
RSAT on Windows 7 can only technically work with WS2008R2 and earlier, though some things, like AD configuration, seem to work fine - but the main server manager function is dead in the water.
I refuse to let that one aspect of Win8 decide it for my laptop though, since I can remote into the server using my LAN just fine. But it'd be a nice bonus for sure. 🙂
But yeah, Pentium Dual-Core T2330 Processor 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM (might be 2GB)... think it'll be overall better using Win8 versus the Win7 install on there now? I'm not sure I really want to spend $40 doing anything for that laptop - it was a $500 purchase back in like 2007 mostly to take notes in class and work somewhere out of the dorm from time to time. Did the trick for that, and more.
techs
Lifer
The Acer Netbook I put it on had a dual core Amd cpu. I don't remember exactly which one, but one of the latest. Underpowered for even an entry level dual core on a real laptop but I ran just short of fantastic.
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