Formfiller

Repost from techbroil.com by another poster: Microsoft's strategy is straight from Dilbert: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2005-12-22/ "Our new product is a cable that doesn't attach to anything." "We hope to create demand via a series of commercials showing young people dancing"

The courts will be scroogled, too: http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-teaming-up-with-oracle-against-google-in-java-case-7000011571/

You will get banned for this. Try to add more text into your posts. Just posting a link with a picture is hated there.

Tech press is toothless, especially those newer "hipster" outlets like TheVerge, I doubt they had such questions even in mind. Someone like John Dvorak looks really good today compared to them. And the techpress-departments of big mainstream outlets like CBS etc. are even below their gossip journalists.

Oh, I see that wkempf answered you there. Beware, he really loves Windows 8: http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Microsoft-still-in-denial-phase-over-W8-possible-relaunch-in-February/75a3410a8f204d1a8fdca15001253815

Looks like your account has been unbanned in the past weeks/months. There is no "banned" there.

I thought you had an account already. Weren't you banned? Anyway, the theme is that there is "too much negativity" there (and I am the one of the main reasons - that guy in the link is an admin btw). So I don't think your posts will survive long there now. I think the only reason why the tolerate me and the few other complainers is because of habit. But if you still want to sign-up good luck. Beware though - EvilD is really persistent at defending MS at all costs.

Well, at least with Windows 8, it was right in the post. According to him, done right in W8 is the following:

I don't think this dialog appears that way when you have another browser set as standard browser. Or does it? Can anyone test this?

Top 100 in software: http://www.amazon.com/best-sellers-software/zgbs/software/ref=pd_dp_ts_sw_1#1 Even the expensive W7 Pro runs circles around ANY Windows 8 version now.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/us-dell-earnings-idUSBRE91I17F20130220 Ho hum, maybe it has something to do with WIndows 8? The amazon bestseller listings are pretty obvious. Even refurbished P4s with Windows XP sell better. Man, even DOS devices sell better! One would think this would tell the CEOs something.. apparently not. But even let's tout strictly the party-line and assume W8 had nothing to do with it, and it's really all just because of tablets.. wasn't Windows 8 supposed to repair this? PC sales are tanking more than ever, and W8 tablets are flopping even harder. So even if we go strictly by the party-line argumentation, EVEN THEN W8 IS A FAILURE.

Oh, well. All too familiar. Here evildictaitor even denials the (obvious) demise of XNA: http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/What-is-happening-with-XNA That guy is very close to MS, as you can see here: http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Microsoft-spoof?page=2 I am pretty sure that his stance reflects the corporate policy of this "nu Microsoft" thing very very well. Because all their public mudslinging now was visible prior in his posts. Thus he's a valuable insight (and one reason why I still dabble there). Apparently, the internal mantra at MS currently is "Whatever we do it's going to be unpopular, so we might as well do X" and "haters gonna hate". Here's the relevent quote from EvilD: (I don't agree with him of course, but I think it illustrates the current thinking at MS) Charlotte, you've wrote here here that Ballmer cracked. I agree. It appears that it went even further and Microsoft collectively cracked, maybe indeed in part because of the media favoring Linux, Google and then Apple. So they decided to wage war against everyone, even the consumers. If you want to know how Microsoft's PR will behave in the future, read those two linked Channel9 threads. Short version: Expect even more obfuscation.

Oh uh, Thurrott loses his cool again: http://winsupersite.com/messenger/microsoft-sticks-skype-shaped-dagger-messenger I guess we can safely assume that his gift package from Microsoft was this time smaller than usual.

Paul Thurrott having an identity crisis: http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/blue ... Also some months ago, he called Windows 8 FrankensteinOS or something in that vein. Thurrott is obviously conflicted. He calls W8 a disaster, yet scoffs HP for wanting to flee it. What's wrong looking for alternatives if the product from your OS supplier is a disaster? My personal guess ist that deep down he doesn't like W8, but needs to praise it to keep his gig. He's incapable to run this charade at all time though.

I think the black screen habit was fixed with the service packs. I wouldn't praise the UAC behavior on W7 much though, they have "fixed" that one only through a pretty ugly hack: http://www.pretentiousname.com/misc/win7_uac_whitelist2.html So it's only less annoying in W7 by making it completely useless on the default setting in the first place. The default-setting prompts don't really function in W7, yet they are still here just for show and annoy. Those kind of "solutions" employed by Sinfosky's team were kinda a hint to what's to come with W8..

You're completely right on this. That's why I also consider Windows 7 as a very unremarkable release. It's basically a repackaged Vista SP2 with minor UI improvements, with the key difference being its later release and thus the availability of more powerful hardware. If you would put Vista SP2 and Win7 on current hardware, you wouldn't notice much difference. There is a speed increase, but it's very minor. In fact, Vista looks actually more glossy than W7 (the smooth orb-animation on boot-up in Vista is gone in W7, the smooth transition from the log-in screen to the desktop is gone as well, windowing animations are more jerky). Quite a shame that Sinofsky got such praise for it. The only actual core improvement of Windows 7 is in my opinion the saner licensing. With higher up SKUs havíng all the features of the lesser versions - Pro having all the features of Home Premium. That was different with Vista; Business SKU had not all features of Home Premium (especially the DVD codecs and Media Center were missing). Ironically, exactly these features have been cut again in Windows 8!

And here are the notebook bestsellers: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Laptop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565108/ref=pd_ts_zgc_e_565108_morl?pf_rd_p=1306419382&pf_rd_s=right-5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=2956501011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=139Y5693F5201N2CPJ8M First ranked: Only number 5 runs W8, the rest are Mac and W7, with the exception of the Chromebook.

Top 100 desktop PC bestellers on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Desktop-Computers/zgbs/electronics/565098/ref=pd_ts_zgc_e_565098_more?pf_rd_p=1444309922&pf_rd_s=right-4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=4972214011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0E8J72WN82YN2MCBF95D The first ranked are these: Hurray for W8! By the way, number 3 is indeed a refurbished Pentium 4 with Windows XP on it! http://www.amazon.com/Dell-GX620-Professional-Professionally-Refurbished/dp/B0050D1XMG/ref=zg_bs_565098_3

Another battle on channel9: http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Windows-Blue-should-bring-back-the-DVD-codecs

I admit it I pretty much only read this thread here. I think some do the same. So, in case you missed it, there is no right-click context menu to scan a file with the built-in anti-virus of W8! Just found the thread with the details:

What a piece of s*** this thing is! Unbelievable.

By the way, after some testing, Kingsoft Office has also far better compability with the MS Office file format than Libre Office. So this and Softmaker are far better than LibreOffice. In fact I would say LibreOffice/OpenOffice is the worst alternative and the best thing that happened to Microsoft in this area. People try that, get disappointed (rightfully so!) and crawl back to MS Office. If the tech press would hype Softmaker (or Kingsoft), MS would get finally some competition. But they are hyping the worst one instead. I guess it's just because it's FOSS and all that, and the tech press still loves that. Either way, FORGET Libre/Open Office. The only ones this thing is helping is MS themselves.

Another must try Office alternative is Kingsoft Office: http://www.kingsoftstore.com/download-office/index That thing is like a 1-1 copy of MS Office XP. It has even VBA macros and com-addins. I still would recommend Softmaker though, because the Kingsoft software IS a very outrageous to-the-letter copy of MS Ofice, with pretty much no innovation of their own. One could almost think they have stolen the source code or something. But still, the way MS behaves recently, I would rather promote that one than Microsoft's original. So, if you need a MS Office look alike alternative...

I had enough sparing sessions with EvilD to know how he ticks. I am pretty sure he doesn't really hate the start menu as much as he likes to claim. Here he effectively praises Stardock's Start8 for "content creators": http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Microsoft-still-in-denial-phase-over-W8-possible-relaunch-in-February/e706d244f77a4796a6bba15201468d7c His trick is just to defend MS at all costs. If they would re-introduce the start menu, he would change tune about metro within the second. He's one of the reasons why I still post there.. discussing with such a personality is quite the rhetorical training. Too bad he resorts to "tl;dr" when all else fails. If you want to see him getting really angry, read this: http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Microsoft-continues-to-please-their-existing-customers?page=3

MS sinks even lower: http://www.scroogled.com/TheLatest "Billboard near Google HQ spreads Scroogled message" "Morning commuters near Google's headquarters in California's Silicon Valley are greeted by a new Outlook.com billboard educating Gmail users that Google goes through personal emails to sell ads February 7, 2013."