Will Windows 8 go the way of Windows ME and Windows Vista?

It seems the majority skips a version of Windows.

Win 98 was popular, Windows ME was a failure (although I personally liked it better than 9

XP was obviously massive, Vista was a let down.

Windows 7 has become widely accepted, and I get the feeling that Windows 8 won't be a hit with consumers..

ME and Vista were both thought to be rather buggy operating systems, the jury is still out on windows 8, it may not be buggy but I don't think a lot of people like the interface.

Personally I usually adopt the latest, I will probably keep Windows 7 on my workstation for a while yet, but I am seriously considering a Microsoft Surface tablet with Windows 8.

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Comments

ally_uk

Yep i'm running start8, I do not want that Metro junk on my desktop I have used it quite alot and just prefer the old look of Windows maybe i'm a old fart lol.

ptilsen

Vista was and is genuinely bad on its own. Windows 7 is much faster, even with good drivers. Drivers were a huge part of the Vista bad experience, but far from the only part. It was no ME, but it was no XP, either.

Slowhand

I think I'm going to take a wait-and-see approach to these "Is Windows 8 going to fail?" topics that have been popping up so much lately, until the OS has been out for a while and we see what kind of reception it gets. . . or, at least, until after the actual launch in four days.

All joking aside, it's going to be interesting to see. I remember a lot of people thinking that the 'radically different' look and feel of XP vs. 2000 and 9x was too much of a change, and it wasn't really until SP1 came out that I saw a lot of my friends and colleagues begin to move to XP at all. These things take time, and sometimes unexpected factors pop up that can make or break a product.

I'm looking forward to bringing this topic up again in Q4 of 2013, once we've seen some deployments of Server 2012 and Windows 8 in enterprises as well as how the Surface devices are doing, and once some major software manufacturers like Adobe, Valve, Symantec, etc. begin jumping in and creating Windows 8 friendly apps. We can also take a look at how the first few months go, what driver and legacy software support looks like, and what other stumbling-blocks Microsoft has to clear. Once all that happens, we can start making some good arguments both for and against the new OS.

DevilWAH

Slowhand wrote: »

it wasn't really until SP1 came out that I saw a lot of my friends and colleagues begin to move to XP at all. These things take time.

Thats a very good point, SP1 was big upgrade and inprovment to the original release.

dave330i

We're still using XP at work and slowly migrating to win7. At the current pace, we'll skip win8 and upgrade to win9 when win10 comes out.

SteveLord

AlexNguyen wrote: »

I did not see such hype when RIM introduced the Blackberry Playbook.

Since this is a discussion on failures...I guess it was only a matter of time before the Playbook would be mentioned............ZING!

Cpl.Klinger

dave330i wrote: »

We're still using XP at work and slowly migrating to win7. At the current pace, we'll skip win8 and upgrade to win9 when win10 comes out.

Man, I thought we were still in the dark ages for running stuff on XP. But then again, we run EVERYTHING on XP, including stuff that might be better off on a version of Windows Server.

AlexNguyen

Slowhand wrote: »

I remember a lot of people thinking that the 'radically different' look and feel of XP vs. 2000 and 9x was too much of a change

I remember many "experts" said that the Apple iPad will fail and many joked about its product name. Look who's laughing now...

tpatt100

Is Microsoft making it known that RT will not run x86 applications?

Surface with Windows RT includes Microsoft Skydrive

Unless you go to the "help me choose" portion, they don't seem to be making it known it will not run traditional applications. I would assume by now most people learned this from Android which has no desktop OS and iOS which most people didn't own Apple PCs anyways.

AlexNguyen

SteveLord wrote: »

Since this is a discussion on failures...I guess it was only a matter of time before the Playbook would be mentioned............ZING!

Not only the Playbook, the Blackberry too. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency just announced the switch to iPhone, dropping Blackberry: Federal agency to switch to iPhone, drop BlackBerry - Yahoo! News

tpatt100

AlexNguyen wrote: »

Not only the Playbook, the Blackberry too. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency just announced the switch to iPhone, dropping Blackberry: Federal agency to switch to iPhone, drop BlackBerry - Yahoo! News

Ouch...Yeah when your corporate and government contracts are dropping that is not a good sign.

sratakhin

I never had many problems with drivers in Vista. Of course, I never used it on a computer made before 2006, let alone upgrading XP to Vista. But it always bothered me to open any item in the Control Panel and wait for 5 or more seconds. Why did it have to be that slow with no apparent reason?

WafflesAndRootbeer

I think yes and no. Here's my reasoning.....

Yes, for the first year at least. Nobody really needs to upgrade right now if they have a working 7 setup and many people obviously bought into Windows 7 after the poop stain that was Vista. Businesses are still clinging to XP and upgrading or have upgraded to 7 in large numbers.

No, in the long run. Windows 8 brings some big features to the table for those who buy the OS as a replacement for a broken 7 installation and those who are buying new hardware. Assuming that retail stores follow Microsoft dictation and remove 7 from the shelves in short order, many will be forced to use it as a replacement for their OEM 7 installations when their PC breaks or whatever the case may be since many of them won't have made recovery discs to reclaim their OEM software install. I did a lot of XP to Vista installs when I was working retail as a Geek Squad agent and it was simply because we didn't have XP for them to buy and people lost their recovery discs.

SteveLord

WafflesAndRootbeer wrote: »

No, in the long run. Windows 8 brings some big features to the table for those who buy the OS as a replacement for a broken 7 installation and those who are buying new hardware.

And those would be? Remember....you said "big."

it_consultant

tpatt100 wrote: »

Is Microsoft making it known that RT will not run x86 applications?

Surface with Windows RT includes Microsoft Skydrive

Unless you go to the "help me choose" portion, they don't seem to be making it known it will not run traditional applications. I would assume by now most people learned this from Android which has no desktop OS and iOS which most people didn't own Apple PCs anyways.

I found this curious as well. Surface will be released with the full version sometime in the future. I will wait for that one, and I will buy it.

RomBUS

I think Windows 8 will be a success for the most part especially in homes and now that people are adopting tablets more often these days. I think MS has done a fair share marketing this thing and getting the word out. Also, their partnership relationships new and old are a lot stronger than the past.

Iristheangel

I actually have to resist the temptation to buy the new Surface RT. I really would like a tablet that has Office and let's me read my WGU books (some are in Flash) but I don't want to bother buying a new Android tablet. The Surface RT would be enough for me if I just planned on using it for school but the Pro would be perfect for school AND work. Must... resist... impulse.... buy....

(God I wish I was a typical female and my impulse buys were shoes....)

bdub

Iristheangel wrote: »

I actually have to resist the temptation to buy the new Surface RT. I really would like a tablet that has Office and let's me read my WGU books (some are in Flash) but I don't want to bother buying a new Android tablet. The Surface RT would be enough for me if I just planned on using it for school but the Pro would be perfect for school AND work. Must... resist... impulse.... buy....

(God I wish I was a typical female and my impulse buys were shoes....)

I dont know...shoes and hand bags are expensive!

Iristheangel

Shoes and handbags wouldn't touch the amount of money I spend on my computers. Thankfully, I'm a master budgeter and I always find the best deals on my computers

Claymoore

My company started our Windows 8 deployment last Monday and I have been running it for a week. Still fumbling around a little bit as I start to rebuild my lab using Client Hyper-V (goodbye dual boot!) and try out some new features. IE 10 is more locked down by default, and I had to install Chrome so I could get Silverlight to work, but so far so good. Until I tried to Enter and start a new line here to no avail. Have to dig into that one a bit.

My wife and I have original Kindle Fires to go with our laptops (work and personal for me), but I am considering a Windows 8 tablet to replace my aging personal laptop. One reason is I have all these Blu-Ray movies with their DVD and digital copies. The digital copies are either secure iTunes or WMA so they don't play on the Kindle. I also have a Kindle DX and it doesn't look like Amazon will be continuing that large form factor. A full-size W8 tablet, either a Surface or Slate, would be a nice option for those movies and my tech books.

SteveLord

RomBUS wrote: »

I think Windows 8 will be a success for the most part especially in homes and now that people are adopting tablets more often these days.

Correction: They are adopting Apple, Google and Amazon tablets. And Amazon's low price point for the Kindle Fire, footprint in eReader market and ability to make their money back on books is how they got into it. Otherwise, it would totally be Apple and Google.

Microsoft's involvement comes from poor Windows 7 tablets over the years and smartphones that nobody is buying. They need something attractive. And they are not offering much of anything in my opinion. At least for now. And performance from an actual retail product has yet to be seen.

Iristheangel

My friend sent me this article and it's REALLY getting me excited for Windows 8. After navigating through Linux, Cisco IOS, Juniper IOS, CatOS, etc, I'm not so turned off by the idea of learning a new UI. The article is excellent in highlighting reasons to switch to Windows 8 without sounding like an overexcited fanboy:
Under the hood of Windows 8, or why desktop users should upgrade from Windows 7 | ExtremeTech

bdub

Iristheangel wrote: »

Shoes and handbags wouldn't touch the amount of money I spend on my computers. Thankfully, I'm a master budgeter and I always find the best deals on my computers

Ha! Fair enough.

Personally I'm a binge buyer when it comes to computers. I usually hold out until I am really excited about a new piece of hardware such as when Sandy Bridge was released with its massive overclocking potential. I went all out and built a pretty beefy box and splurged on a nice aluminum Silverstone case.

But to the topic of Win8 count me as one of the excited ones. While I have enjoyed running 2008 R2 as my workstation OS I am looking forward to going back to a Windows client OS a bit. Client Hyper-V looks really good and there definitely some other great features. I honestly don't think it will go the way of Vista, perhaps in the Enterprise it will be I dont think people will reject it as strongly as Vista was rejected. I also really think there is a strong possibility Win8 will increase the BYOD trend and could creep its way into the Enterprise in such a way.

ptilsen

I'm interested and will try it on my laptop. I'm still extremely leery of using it with my desktop (dual monitors) and certainly with servers. The under-the-hood and feature additions are impressive on both sides, but the interface terrifies and frustrates me for many tasks.

Surface Pro interests me a lot. Too bad I just bought a laptop, but I needed one.

Iristheangel

The Surface RT reviews are coming in:
CNet: Microsoft Surface is the best productivity tablet yet - YouTube
Engadget: Microsoft Surface with Windows RT review - YouTube
Microsoft Surface with Windows RT review -- Engadget

it_consultant

Thats awesome, I will still wait for the "pro" version. I wonder how Samsung will respond. They have produced a high quality tablet running Windows 7 for the last couple of years.

I guess I will be going to the Microsoft Store this weekend.

Whiteout

I myself am not too fond of Windows 8. Had it installed for about 4 months on my Laptop and just recently went back to Windows 7. Windows 8 just didn't really seem intiutive to me, seems like I was always just fumbling around the interface trying to find stuff. Who knows maybe someday I will give it a shot again, but for now I'm just going to stick with 7.

veritas_libertas

Iristheangel wrote: »

My friend sent me this article and it's REALLY getting me excited for Windows 8. After navigating through Linux, Cisco IOS, Juniper IOS, CatOS, etc, I'm not so turned off by the idea of learning a new UI. The article is excellent in highlighting reasons to switch to Windows 8 without sounding like an overexcited fanboy:
Under the hood of Windows 8, or why desktop users should upgrade from Windows 7 | ExtremeTech

That is the best article I have seen so far on Windows 8. Cool new features, but I'm still a little annoyed by the removal of the Start button. I guess that just makes my cranky!

tpatt100

I could not watch the reviews on Youtube and only read the Engadget one but I wish tech reviews would create/use a consistent set of tests. Not an industry standard but for each site where tests are done for semi normal uses the average consumer would look for when buying a device. Say a usability test for Facebook, Twitter, web browsing email, etc. stuff the average consumer might want/expect in a tablet device. So if they are coming from the iPad or going to the iPad from Android or leaving both and trying Windows what to expect when they get the device home.

ally_uk

Am I the only one who prefers Server 2012 I have been using it allday and I love the layout of it less bloat then Windows 8 version of Metro