Windows 8.1: A pain

[hobbyguy]

You are not alone with the notion that Windows 8 is unfriendly to many users.

My dad lives in the states, and the common theme he heard was "Don't buy Windows 8", but that is amongst the older users demographic.

PC sales tanked after the release of Windows 8.

Other than for business users ("pro" versions, NT etc.), I've never seen the market, nor Microsoft supply the market, for older versions. '95 came out, 3.x went dead, '98 came out, 95 went dead. Etc. But Windows 7 hasn't "gone dead". The likes of Costco (US) aren't carrying Windows 7 units because they don't sell. The Windows 7 Home Premium disc I have has a manufacture date of January 2014 - long after Windows 7 was supposed to be officially dead.

So I guess there have to a lot of users (like myself) who said, "If I want a dang tablet I'll buy one - leave my PC alone". Touch screen just isn't all that friendly for PC usage. I can't reach my monitor without leaning over my desk - and it adds no functionality - it would just add fingerprints to my screen.

Add to that, neither of of our two Windows 7 PCs have ever crashed. So there is no underlying desire for a better OS.

Complaints about Windows 7 being a bit sluggish compared to lighter footprint systems like Linux are valid, but mostly because of the limitations of HD access speed. I say that from a practical perspective because having changed over to just SSD (no "mechanical" HD in the PC) it cold boots to full operation in about 30 seconds. Click on a movie file and it is playing in 1 second having loaded both Windows Media player and the movie. So Windows 7 is hardware hungry, I am running an i7 and 16 GB ram (2GB video card). But Windows 7 certainly runs smoothly when you feed it hardware.

That resistance to Windows 8 is also coming from folks who recognize that it is a good system for tablets (although in my opinion not as good as Apple). Tablets are great for what I want one for, but are not functional for many other applications.

The changeover to "one size fits all" Windows 8 would mean that some of the software that I use would have to transfer over to "licensing with annual fees". Other software would require new versions at more expense. Some older hardware peripherals would have to be replaced - again, more expense.

So there is a cohort of users for whom Windows 8 in a PC environment is a step backward, at more expense. It will be interesting to see how long Microsoft allows the parallel platforms to exist.

[Woodenhead]

I'm just hoping this keeps rolling along...

http://sel4.systems/

[Symbonite]

So Windows 7 is hardware hungry, I am running an i7 and 16 GB ram (2GB video card). But Windows 7 certainly runs smoothly when you feed it hardware.

Just like Vista...thats why it failed. Hardware was not there for that program to funtion properly....

[quote="hobbyguy"]

So there is a cohort of users for whom Windows 8 in a PC environment is a step backward, at more expense. It will be interesting to see how long Microsoft allows the parallel platforms to exist.

[quote="hobbyguy"]

Much longer it seems....they want to consolidate everything into one OS .

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/micros ... 27302.html

remember Nadella is more of the engineer part of windows coming from the server side. Bill Gates was a engineer while Steve Ballmer was more Sales and marketing like BING and the Cloud...

[sooperphreek]

if i wanted an xbox and a tablet id buy them. i just wanna use my pc with no selling out.

[Loed]

Windows 8 uses less resources(runs just as fast on older hardware), performs with more stability long term, and with a simple add-on(that admittedly shouldn't be needed) operates exactly the same as Windows 7.

If you know of people with understandable usability issues, point them towards the program Classic Start Menu. It will fix all of their issues quickly.