The future of error screens / Windows 8

[Ryrynz]

I love how everybody completely ignores the enormous upsurge in mobile computing and the fact that an OS like this is needed right now.
The look on peoples faces when I'm at work when I tell them they'll be able to switch between touch screen and standard interfaces is that of keen interest.
It's the first stage, expect things to get better, If you don't need Metro don't use it, simple. This whole "It'll be like Vista talk is plain nonsense."
I find the people who generally complain about Vista are the ones that tend to know absolutely nothing about it and issues are completed unrelated to the OS. I've had more than enough people who don't know what they're talking about hating on it.
Yes I know it was slow in comparison to XP and general app compatibility was poor I experienced this first hand, still after SP1 things were a lot better and there are many happy people running Vista who prefer it over XP.
Dual mode OS's are here to stay, adapt or move on. I won't be grabbing it for Metro, I'm only interested in the kernel improvements and having the latest and "greatest"
Oh and Windows 95 was FAR from being a bad OS. Just because people decide to hate on it (for almost no apparent reason, learn to configure things!) or because it's done to fit a trend (bag, good, bad, good, bad) does not make something bad.

[Night Wing]

From what I've seen on YouTube and read on the internet, I'm another person who is going to be skipping Windows 8 like I skipped Windows Vista. I saw enough of Vista when it came out, didn't care for it so I kept using XP until Windows 7 came out. If Windows 7 wouldn't have come out and at the time, if Vista would have ruled for a very long time and I'm glad it didn't, I would have moved on to Linux or Apple OS-X. In other words, anything but Vista.

As for mobile computing, I don't do or need mobile computing. I don't even own a smart phone. I just use an old flip cell phone which is always turned off. I only use a cell phone when it's an emergency or I need something at that moment to make me turn my cell phone on and call out on. I've never sent a text or received a text message on my cell phone. If people want to call me, they know to call me on my "land line home phone". My land line phone works in the aftermath of the damage done from a hurricane whereas cell phones don't due to the damage to cell towers. I live in hurricane country only 90 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. My cell phone minutes used last month, all of 6 minutes.

All of my friend's who own smart phones, their phone's plastic viewing screen looks like a mess with all of their fingerprints on it. For me, Metro is nothing but a glorified phone application. I own a desktop tower pc. I've never owned a laptop, never owned a notebook, never owned a netbook, never owned a tablet. I prefer a mouse over my fingers. I don't want to be constantly cleaning my monitor's viewing screen because of all the fingerprints and smudges. Fingerprints, smudges and from what I've seen on YouTube and from what I've read, with no start button in Windows 8, speaking strictly for myself, Windows 8 is already "DOA" (dead on arrival).

I own two computers with backup disks for both running Windows 7 so I really don't need to buy another computer for at least 7-10 years or until Microsoft or whoever comes out with another operating system I like and would want to use. Each computer has a second internal backup hard drive in it which backups the mirror image on the first of every month. So in essence, I've already "moved on" past Windows 8 because I don't need the latest and greatest.

As the say, "To Each, Their Own". The market place will ultimately decide if Windows 8 will be another Vista or not.

[Jonatham]

I love how everybody completely ignores the enormous upsurge in mobile computing and the fact that an OS like this is needed right now.
The look on peoples faces when I'm at work when I tell them they'll be able to switch between touch screen and standard interfaces is that of keen interest.
It's the first stage, expect things to get better, If you don't need Metro don't use it, simple. This whole "It'll be like Vista talk is plain nonsense."
I find the people who generally complain about Vista are the ones that tend to know absolutely nothing about it and issues are completed unrelated to the OS. I've had more than enough people who don't know what they're talking about hating on it.
Yes I know it was slow in comparison to XP and general app compatibility was poor I experienced this first hand, still after SP1 things were a lot better and there are many happy people running Vista who prefer it over XP.
Dual mode OS's are here to stay, adapt or move on. I won't be grabbing it for Metro, I'm only interested in the kernel improvements and having the latest and "greatest"
Oh and Windows 95 was FAR from being a bad OS. Just because people decide to hate on it (for almost no apparent reason, learn to configure things!) or because it's done to fit a trend (bag, good, bad, good, bad) does not make something bad.

OMG LOL


But, being honest, windows vista IS a piece of crap. At the time windows 7 was released, I was still on dual boot (XP and Vista). So, when windows 7 came out, I decided to test it by myself against vista in my computer under exact conditions:

Clean install of windows vista SP2 (Yes, it has a sp2 for vista) against a launch version of windows 7, both being Ultimate versions (I did it with x86-32 and x86-64 versions), same computer (I have not changed a single piece of hardware), same drivers, same programs I use on a diary basis. I got amazed with the huge performance increase of windows 7 against vista. It felt like I had built an entire computer with more powerful parts. Even Crysis 1 runs smoother in my pc with windows 7 compared with vista. And, as I said, using the SAME video drivers and same video card (an ATI 4870 at that time). I still tried to update vista at windows update with the latest updates to see if I could get some performance improvement but no gain at all.

It was not a subjective test but the difference was so brutal that it was not need to measure anything: faster boot times, faster programs loading, smoother gameplay on mainstream and power hungry games. And, the most important: STABILITY. Vista was always a troublesome OS which concern about stability. Windows 7 is stable and smooth out of the box on the same hardware certified to run windows vista.

And, let's be honest: Vista is bad but brands like Dell and HP selling brand new desktops and notebooks (at the time of vista release) with celerons and 512Mb of run running windows vista (plus all those crapware those brands put in the O.S.) does not help either.

[stravinsky]

AFAIK, the major drawback of vista was that it clubbed video memory and RAM or something like that. so that computers sold with 512MB or 1GB RAM were 80% of the time swapping from the disc. people at that time did not have as much RAM as today. RAM was quite expensive then. hence the bad reputation at launch.

today, with standard RAM size of 4GB, Vista+SP2 is almost as good as win7+SP1.
with modern hardware, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between them.

of course, win8 is epic fail. i installed it in my desktop and its so bad that i started thinking UNITY of Ubuntu might not be so bad after all !

[Moonchild]

of course, win8 is epic fail. i installed it in my desktop and its so bad that i started thinking UNITY of Ubuntu might not be so bad after all !

Ouch.. that's saying something -- I looked at that monstrosity briefly and I was just amazed that they actually thought it was a good thing to ship on their distro.
Being different than other linux distros... I can see the value in, to put yourself into a unique position building a circle of people preferring it.
But going about it that way? err...

[stravinsky]

just to add that win8 is good and feels very fast. its just the Metro UI thats bad on desktops (non-touch devices).

to escape from UNITY, i am still on ubuntu 11.04

[Moonchild]

If it were up to Microsoft, the classic desktop would disappear. And I'm sure they'll push for people to develop Metro apps exclusively.

[stravinsky]

they tried to, but failed.
strategy : the express (free) version of MSVC could build apps for only metro . if you want to develop a complete software, you have to buy the complete MSVC.
after protests, they backtracked.

[lyceus]

If it were up to Microsoft, the classic desktop would disappear. And I'm sure they'll push for people to develop Metro apps exclusively.

They want to avoid to fragment the market even more.

People like me will stick with Windows XP and when it dies we will move to Windows 7 + Windows XP emulated for the apps that don't work. If they just develop for Metro and people hate it like with Windows Vista (which is clearly now), people will start to skip upgrades until Windows 9 is showcased... or stick in Windows XP even without patches. So they will shoot themselves in the foot: XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 9: Five Windows flavors to support in the next years. They want lure people to windows 8 so they can kill Windows XP and a "Metro UI only" Windows doesn't help. If mission successful then Windows 9 will be Metro UI only.

[Jonatham]

That kind of 'innovation' you could expect from Apple, not from MS. Apple has a strong fanbase; they can choose to sell overpriced dogsh*t in a fancy package and their 'apple sheeps' will buy it just because it has the apple logo on it. Well, A image can explain it better:

Moderator (Lobocursor) Comment: Since "Apple sheeps" is a term even used by Samsung and found on internet (like on): http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... le%20Sheep I only suggest to you to avoid foul words with * for avoid a flamewar with other users.