Did we all just witness Windows start to die?

[SysAdmin]

@Duce

When in doubt blame Windows.

[djos]

@Duce

When in doubt blame Windows.

After switching to Mac earlier this year I have to agree, windows is just junk!

[Duce]

@Duce

When in doubt blame Windows.

Hehe, one of those "if the shoe fits" deals.  And I say that as someone with MCSE/MCSA certs

[bloodline]

never actually had it work right. Well, maybe once...Takes forever, more than once its crashed leaving the phone in an non-bootable state. Apple in all their user-friendliness cant check if you have enough space prior to starting, and I had a SSD.  If I NEVER see iTunes again it will be too soon.

If you look in Settings->General->Usage it gives you a full and detailed audit of your memory usage (and other usage metrics)... Also, an upgrade, OS or app won't start if there isn't enough storage space.

[bloodline]

iTunes is 99.99% of the reason I am entirely steering clear of any Apple mobile devices in the future.  Sadly, until this ipad gives up the ghost, I'm still locked into their ecosystem.

iTunes is the biggest gongshow, trainwreck piece of software on the Windows platform by far.  Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but I think that's entirely intentional on Windows.  It runs fine on a Mac, but not on Windows.  I think they figure I'll get irked enough so I'll replace all my PC's with Mac's, lol.

I've had ZERO, and I mean ZERO issues with itunes on my macs.  Friendly on memory, never crashes or bogs the machines down.  Windows though, oooh boy, completely different story.  Not uncommon on my systems to find it using 2+ GB of system RAM doing nothing at all, just the program loaded not even playing music or with a device attached.

I have both iPad and iPhone, I don't like iTunes either. Since iOS 6, I haven't had to use iTunes anymore, as everything can be done using iCloud.

[guest7146]

The only thing that really bothers me about the death of Windows is the potential for loss of Visual Studio as a DE.  I actually really like Visual Studio, to the extent that I think you'd have to be mad to develop Windows based applications with any other tool.

I like Linux but to my knowledge there isn't really a direct equivalent of a Visual Studio type of development environment on Linux? Correct me if I am wrong and I will happily go and check it out

Brian.

[psxphill]

Just buy a Nexus device.

No sdcard slot and if you bought a nexus 2 years ago then it's stuck on 4.1.2
 
I'd rather buy the phone I like the look of and run any version of android I want on it.
 
Apple are the best at software support, but I don't like the hardware on those either.
 
I've been looking for something similar to my current phone, which is an xperia ray, but there really isn't anything I like.

[bbond007]

The only thing that really bothers me about the death of Windows is the potential for loss of Visual Studio as a DE.  I actually really like Visual Studio, to the extent that I think you'd have to be mad to develop Windows based applications with any other tool.

I like Linux but to my knowledge there isn't really a direct equivalent of a Visual Studio type of development environment on Linux? Correct me if I am wrong and I will happily go and check it out

Brian.

In the past you could choose one of the Borland products such as Delphi or C++ Builder, but you are absolutely correct... there is not much competition (from commercial products anyway) which is a shame. I believe both of those products were also available on Linux, however I seem to remember the Kylix IDE being a little unstable under Linux.

In Linux there are a lot of IDEs to choose from that you can use with the various GNU languages. Eclipse, Genie, CodeBlocks, etc...

xwpe is a clone of the old Borland "Turbo" IDE if you are nostalgic for that

[Aegis]

PC's (and Mac desktops) aren't going anywhere for the time being - especially since a lot of these iDevices (smartphones and tablets) are being purchased in addition to existing home PCs.

People will move towards using desktops less and less though as the tablets (or more correctly, the applications) become more capable. Smartphones alone will never be practical enough for the broad spectrum of PC use (yeah - I *can* write a novel on a smartphone but why would I when there's better options available?).

And that doesn't even begin to cover stuff like specialist applications - Photoshop, video editing, desktop publishing - these (pretty common) PC usages require a mouse, Wacom tablet, large screen, lots of storage - all we'll see is just the right 'tool' being used for the right job.

This will impact PC sales but it certainly won't 'kill' the PC. Regarding Windows... Microsoft is struggling to find a way to stay relevant - that walled-garden iOS strategy (and the payoff) is sooo tempting but its not what Windows is about - the Modern UI needed to happen to unify smartphones/tablets/PCs but its hopelessly optimistic implementation (that devs would shift to Metro apps and users would be happy running apps from the start screen) was misguided and heavy-handed.

I actually like Windows 8 - the start screen/charms etc. don't bother me in the slightest - and the underlying version of Windows is to me, the best yet - I prefer it to Windows 7.

But I spend 99.9% of my time on the desktop and rarely, if ever launch 'modern' apps - MS should've known this would be the outcome and realized that Metro should have been subservient to the desktop - not the other way around.

I guess in their haste to make 'touch' a selling point (which the desktop still does badly) they figured Metro had to be front and center - and it's cost them a lot of credibility which is a shame because Windows 8 really is a good OS underneath the fluff.

[stefcep2]

I guess in their haste to make 'touch' a selling point (which the desktop still does badly) they figured Metro had to be front and center - and it's cost them a lot of credibility which is a shame because Windows 8 really is a good OS underneath the fluff.

What's underneath that makes it better?

I still haven't activated my copy, so maybe I'm missing something but the default desktop them looks like pants, and they've removed stuff (like they did when going from Vista to Win 7).

 All in all I felt I had one hand tied behind my back.

[motrucker]

My 16 year old grand daughter just received an HP "laptop" for her birthday. It had Windows 8 on it. After two days, that machine was gone.
If they can't talk the kids into this bomb, do you really think it will fly?
She is now happy again, with a nice powerful new Windows 7 tower. She likes games, and is a budding computer artist (quite good, I might add). If they can't convince the kids that the PC is dead, where will that go?

[psxphill]

What's underneath that makes it better?
 
I still haven't activated my copy, so maybe I'm missing something but the default desktop them looks like pants, and they've removed stuff (like they did when going from Vista to Win 7).

The code was optimised for speed and memory usage for running on tablets, but as it uses the same code then you get the same benefit.
 
The desktop looks the same to me, background picture + icons + task bar at the bottom. The start menu & Aero has gone, but I don't miss either of them. The only thing I'm a little disappointed about is they stopped supporting Virtual PC/XP Mode, but there are other free emulators. Windows 8.1 preview is nicer, but on the whole Windows 8 is perfectly usable.
 
I can't understand why anybody would downgrade to Windows 7. It would be like returning a Ferrari because you preferred the feel of the gear stick in your Ford.

[stefcep2]

The code was optimised for speed and memory usage for running on tablets, but as it uses the same code then you get the same benefit.
 
The desktop looks the same to me, background picture + icons + task bar at the bottom. The start menu & Aero has gone, but I don't miss either of them. The only thing I'm a little disappointed about is they stopped supporting Virtual PC/XP Mode, but there are other free emulators. Windows 8.1 preview is nicer, but on the whole Windows 8 is perfectly usable.
 
I can't understand why anybody would downgrade to Windows 7. It would be like returning a Ferrari because you preferred the feel of the gear stick in your Ford.

Yeah I'm not convinced about the performance gains.  i suspect they've taken things  out that were there before in Win 7.  Tiny 7 does a lot of this and ends up lightning fast..

I mean Win7 Home had Mediacentre pre-installed which I know slows it down as I've removed it and Win 7 (and Vista) is faster without it.

Are there any real world tests on equally loaded set ups?

[Aegis]

What's underneath that makes it better?

I still haven't activated my copy, so maybe I'm missing something but the default desktop them looks like pants, and they've removed stuff (like they did when going from Vista to Win 7).

 All in all I felt I had one hand tied behind my back.

I'll try not to be too subjective (since a lot of the 'feel' of using a system depends on its specifications and configuration) but on my i7/Radeon HD 5870, Win 8 'feels' snappier, more optimized and just a slick experience overall (can't believe I just typed that )

On more solid ground, I like the changes to the file-copy system, the Task Manager - I like the Ribbon interface on Windows Explorer (just seems more accessible to me).

Installation seems quicker (something that they're continued to work on since Vista) and doing an in-place upgrade (applications and all) from 7 (or 8 Release Preview) worked flawlessly for me.

Under the hood tweaks also include some fixes to the WinSxS system (badly needed) - it's still a bloated hard disk hog but it's not as bad as it was with Windows 7 and anyone with SSD space concerns about Win 8's footprint should know that they'll save all that space (and more) with Windows 8.

8.1 is going to have some nice new features too - direct support for 3D printing has piqued my interest as well as improvements to SkyDrive and numerous other features.

The lack of a Start Menu doesn't bother me at all - I use a pretty small number of applications most of the time (3D, video-editing, Photoshop etc.) so hopping to the Metro UI or clicking on a pinned icon on the taskbar works fine for me (YMMV obviously).

Is it a huge improvement? No - and if you're happy with 7, there's probably not much reason to change. Should you downgrade from 8 to 7? Personally I wouldn't but I understand there's people that don't feel the improvements outweigh the things they've removed - for me they did.

*Edit* oh, and do I think MS was right to go in this direction with Win 8? No. As I mentioned, I think the desktop experience *is* improved (along with some of the underlying systems) but forcing Metro/modern UI on desktop users isn't (and hasn't) going to gain them any traction in the markets they're desperate to make an impact in. They needed to be smarter and instead they've taken a blunt-force approach - hopefully they'll learn from this for Win 9.

[persia]

Microsoft called the Windows 8 interface "metro" in a couple of press releases over a year and a half ago, it was a code name for the design language they used to make the Windows 8 interface.  It's like calling Windows 7 "Vienna."

[commodorejohn]

Microsoft called the Windows 8 interface "metro" in a couple of press releases over a year and a half ago, it was a code name for the design language they used to make the Windows 8 interface.  It's like calling Windows 7 "Vienna."

They never bandied about beta names like "Chicago" and "Vienna" the way they ballyhooed "Metro." (The closest they got before that was "Longhorn," which only people who cared about Vista pre-release bothered with.) The reason they dropped "Metro" was because a minor lawsuit gave them a good excuse for escaping the fantastically terrible word-of-mouth it'd gotten - only it didn't work, and "Metro" stuck. Just a shame Metro the thing stuck with it... :/