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MS rethinking Windows 8, may make changes

A

amenx

Diamond Member
Microsoft prepares rethink on Windows 8 flagship software

Microsoft is preparing to reverse course over key elements of its Windows 8 operating system, marking one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola’s New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago.

“Key aspects” of how the software is used will be changed when Microsoft releases an updated version of the operating system this year, Tami Reller, head of marketing and finance for the Windows business, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Referring to difficulties many users have had with mastering the software, she added: “The learning curve is definitely real.”

Analysts warned that changing course would be a significant admission of failure for Steve Ballmer, chief executive, who called the October launch of Windows 8 a “bet-the-company” moment as Microsoft sought to respond to the success of Apple’s iPad...
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I had a feeling this would happen. So Windows Blue (8.1), if out this summer, looks like the OS to address 8's shortcomings. .
 
What happened to "you just dont like change"?

Evidently the people that dont like Win8 were right, and even MS agrees.

Its not that Metro is bad, its that you cant shoehorn two interfaces into one operating system. Choose one and stick with it.
 
I read a thread a while back saying that Win 8.1 would bring back the Start Menu

BUT... it would take you straight to Metro.
Then a few days ago read a news story about win 8.1 bringing back Start Menu... so if both stories are true, the news is merely a bad marketing stunt as the change fixes nothing IMHO

on the other hand is win8.1 = metro interface deleted from windows... then I'd say they were headed somewhere good.
 
It would be nice if it had two basic modes - Metro and Start. Metro for those who like touchscreens snd entertainment vs. direct desktop access to one's workware. For me, the ugly large boxes are an unnecessary layer to getting to where I want to be.
 
I have a love/hate relationship with Win8. On a tablet or other small touchscreen device I think the Metro UI is great. I’ve spent time with a Surface Pro tablet and it worked well for me. The benefits of Win8 outweighed my annoyance with its lost features and bipolar personality. However, on a traditional desktop I despise it. It took away so much that I had in Win7 and gave me nothing in its place.

[FONT=&quot]Having said that it does have touch which I found could have potential on a desktop for certain uses. Unfortunately when I went to Newegg and saw the prices of touchscreen monitors I realized Windows 8 is really fighting an uphill battle. Win8 biggest strength is too expensive. Maybe when prices of touch screens come down it will see wider acceptance. But without touch, it rates a distant second on the desktop compared to Win7.

If I was MS I'd be seriously researching cheaper touchscreen technologies.
[/FONT]
 
spaceman said:
they had better not charge for this
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They always have in the past.
We are sorry you got boned when you bought Millenium. Purchase XP and all will be well.
We are sorry you got boned when you bought Vista. Purchase 7 and all will be well.
 
but on their commercials, they claim "win8 has new features with the familiar desktop you know and love"

i did a double take... i was like "WHU!?!?"
 
PC sales are dramatically down. MS needs to learn that if it wants something new it needs to make sure it's what the buyer wants, not what MS says that it can have. There was no reason to not have a dual interface, at least until people had a chance to adjust. In future versions maybe, but a radical change ( which is how consumers generally perceived W8) hardly ever goes over well with such a product, unless it clearly offers superior advantages.
 
Matt1970 said:
They always have in the past.
We are sorry you got boned when you bought Millenium. Purchase XP and all will be well.
We are sorry you got boned when you bought Vista. Purchase 7 and all will be well.
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Ummm...not really since this is more like a Service Pack than a fully new OS version.
 
Hugh Jass said:
Ummm...not really since this is more like a Service Pack than a fully new OS version.
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Also, I'm sure there was a free upgrade path from Win98 to Win98SE, no? I seem to remember there wasn't going to be, then MS relented.

But then again, I don't think there was a free upgrade from Win95OSR1 to Win95OSR2?

The portents are unclear.
 
I knew that windows 8 adopters will get screwed. Not everybody knows how to upgrade, so they will stay on 8. And 8 is going to have short support cycle. Same happened to Vista -> 7; although Vista is not bad; just slower than 7.
 
I'm not sure where the article got the "key aspects" quote from but adding a Start button doesn't sound like "rethinking" or "reversing course" on "key aspects" to me. Sounds like Tami Reller trying to get everyone's attention.

I read a thread a while back saying that Win 8.1 would bring back the Start Menu

BUT... it would take you straight to Metro.
Then a few days ago read a news story about win 8.1 bringing back Start Menu... so if both stories are true, the news is merely a bad marketing stunt as the change fixes nothing IMHO
Click to expand...
A button to proceed to the Start Screen would be helpful for users who are on VMs or are RDPing. Not really for anyone else, especially with the hot-corner in existance, but that might not have been the target audience for the change, if it ever turns out to be real.

but on their commercials, they claim "win8 has new features with the familiar desktop you know and love"

i did a double take... i was like "WHU!?!?"
Click to expand...
Let's be fair here, they replaced the Start Menu. Aside from that, Windows 8 is quite similar to Windows 7. The shell (again, aside from Start) is similar and the variety of built in apps are similar featuring only infrequent, iterative changes (Explorer Ribbon, bump in IE version, etc.) but that's to be expected. Windows 7 wasn't exactly like Windows Vista which wasn't exactly like Windows XP.
 
Ancalagon44 said:
What happened to "you just dont like change"?

Evidently the people that dont like Win8 were right, and even MS agrees.
Click to expand...
Well, in a business sense, the customers are always right and you should give them what they want.
But looking at it from a technical perspective, I do believe that a lot of complaining (not all of it) is simply because people hate change and haven't given the new stuff a fair chance. It happened before, remember? I know lots of people who said they would stick with XP forever.

I have mixed feelings about 8, mind you. I still don't find metro apps useful for mouse+keyboard (not yet, at least). The metro PDF viewer was poorly implemented...
But for example the new Start does seem like a slight improvement over the old one. It gives you more space to organize shortcuts and the live tiles look like a nice idea for something like email or an RSS reader.


From what I've read, it seems like they'll add an option to boot do desktop and a Start button. I kinda hope the latter will be optional too, because I don't see myself needing it that much, except in a VM and such, as mentioned in a previous comment.
 
thewhat said:
Well, in a business sense, the customers are always right and you should give them what they want.
But looking at it from a technical perspective, I do believe that a lot of complaining (not all of it) is simply because people hate change and haven't given the new stuff a fair chance. It happened before, remember? I know lots of people who said they would stick with XP forever.

I have mixed feelings about 8, mind you. I still don't find metro apps useful for mouse+keyboard (not yet, at least). The metro PDF viewer was poorly implemented...
But for example the new Start does seem like a slight improvement over the old one. It gives you more space to organize shortcuts and the live tiles look like a nice idea for something like email or an RSS reader.


From what I've read, it seems like they'll add an option to boot do desktop and a Start button. I kinda hope the latter will be optional too, because I don't see myself needing it that much, except in a VM and such, as mentioned in a previous comment.
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I dont think its about not liking change, and I dont think everyone who doesnt like Win8, doesnt like it because they hate change. I think its because it is just bad.

I used Windows 8 for a few days, a week maybe, before I installed that Stardock software that converts it to Win7.

My take on it, is that the Metro environment is great, if thats all you need. Metro is suited to a tablet environment, shoehorning into a desktop was never going to work, and it didnt work, and now they need to fix it. Since I spent most of my time in the desktop mode, using Visual Studio, the only time I need Metro was when I needed the start menu. And that is where it went pearshaped - mixing the two interfaces. As long as you can use one and only one interface, its fine.
 
I hope it's not all or nothing. I don't want a start button back. I wouldn't mind a start menu, but I do not want a start button. I enjoy having only opened items on my bars.
 
I feel Win8 is a form of censorship. It is making desktop users live with a tablet OS. I like Aero, but because Aero won't run well on a tablet, I can't have it on a desktop either.

MS needs to listen to Acer:

"When we were talking to Microsoft, our input to them is balance,” said Acer President Jim Wong. “The world in the next five years is not going 100 percent to touch. Although touch makes a lot of possibilities for PCs, you need to take care of the rest of the world that doesn’t need touch."
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Don't sacrifice the desktop user for a tablet. Either learn balance or create two OS's.
 
lifeblood said:
Don't sacrifice the desktop user for a tablet. Either learn balance or create two OS's.
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100% agreed. My experience with Win8 was essentially "this would be great if I had a touch screen". But I didn't have a touch screen, and after a couple weeks of really giving it a shot, I decided hell with it and went back to 7.

Even the little programs and tweaks that put the start menu back didn't save it, not sure if I botched that or if it was something else, but it was more than just the lack of a start button for me. I got tired of fixing little things only to find new ones, and eventually gave up and stopped wasting time on it.
 
lifeblood said:
I feel Win8 is a form of censorship. It is making desktop users live with a tablet OS. I like Aero, but because Aero won't run well on a tablet, I can't have it on a desktop either.

MS needs to listen to Acer:

Don't sacrifice the desktop user for a tablet. Either learn balance or create two OS's.
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I find that amazing in some ways, to me Win8 is just another OS that I like ,I don't care about things like Aero etc ..infact I still use plenty of different Linux Distro's(that I also like) because I like using different things etc..I'll say Win8 to me is a hybrid OS so not a pure desktop or tablet OS but a mix of the two ,it can be improved and I've no real issues with a hybrid OS.

I just hope Microsoft don't do a tip toe and not rock the boat approach (because of the way some users can't handle it )down the road with their next generation of operating systems,I would rather see a new complete new UI from scratch from them then going back to Win95- Win7 UI groundhog days.


Win8.1 from what I've seen the tweaks are minor,ie to make some users happy,Win9 is where it will get interesting, what direction will Microsoft go in with regards to UI etc and are they going to stay on hybrid OS.
 
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They're not re-thinking anything if a user still can't toggle the Modern UI on/off, or have a start menu that uses only 1/4 - 1/3 of your screen, or run MUI apps in re-sizable windows on your desktop. People that don't like it now still won't once 8.1 is out, and Stardock will happily continue 'fixing' Windows 8 for agitated users @ $5 a pop for Start8 and ModernMix.
 
Meh... I've been running Windows 8 for a couple of weeks with Classic Shell. And with aftermarket start menu it's not any different from Windows 7. There are a couple of annoyances such as default file associations that are associated with metro apps, but that's easily fixed. There is also the fact that some settings such as changing account picture can only be changed in Metro interface, so occasionally you still have to toggle to Metro interface to change settings. However, after a few tweaks Windows 8 is every bit as good as Windows 7.

I will tell that the whole thing made me a lot more aware of the desktop vs tablet aspect of the operating system, it made me think of all the little different things that make or break desktop/tablet experience. The failure of Microsoft is that touch optimized Metro interface and Metro apps DO NOT work on a desktop. Even if I had a touch monitor, I would still use my mouse in desktop because it's just more convenient than having to stretch your arm to the monitor every time you need to manipulate something on the screen. And what would you do if you had to read a long pdf document on your desktop using touch scrolling? Prop your hand on a cinder block so that you won't get tired? Touch is useless on desktop, the Mouse currently works best. I can see some eye tracking technology replacing mouse on a desktop in the future, but not touch. That said Metro works very well on Tablets, I've used Win8 tablets and they're good. The only downside is lack of apps for Windows 8, but if Microsoft manages to gain any significant marketshare then that will change as well.

Bottom line, at this point I don't care if Microsoft doesn't bring back Start Menu in 8.1 update. As long as they do not remove start menu structure from Windows code, thus allowing applications such as Classic Shell or Stardock to survive, I don't care about MS branded start menu. However, I will have a problem if they remove Start Menu architecture from Windows 8 completely because that will kill all the aftermarket start menu apps.
 
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