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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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I'm intrigued, any particular reason for no Windows updates in years Charlotte?
Yeah, in my case I was intrigued by the "running without any antivirus" part.

It may be somewhat OT, but -- @CharlotteTheHarlot, inquiring minds want to know! :)

We had some discussion about this in ...

Installing New Windows XP Updates ( see Post #9 and #12 ).

It is a subject, real security vs. perceived security that deserves a lot more notice IMHO, judging by the hyperbole I see in the threads from MetroTards accusing Windows XP and Win9x users of irresponsibly destroying the security of the world because they receive no real updates or mainline "support" by clinging to an "obsolete" operating system. As if Microsoft "supports" anybody in the first place ( they do not, the worldwide Tech community supports Microsoft and props it up, it would collapse without the millions of Techies working for peanuts fixing countless Windows and other problems ). As mentioned in those posts, I am not careless and do not evangelize to others to do it in this "manual" fashion. But there is more than one way to skin a cat besides letting Microsoft and 3rd parties take over your system. My own personal reasoning just is a product of longtime dis-satisfaction with the status quo, the lack of logic and efficiency and common sense over the years from Microsoft and others that offer help, usually for a price. It sure looks a lot like a Sopranos protection racket or outright extortion sometimes.

Windows Update? Over the years I've watched countless theoretical exploits ( buffer overflows, etc ) get fixed and the same files getting patched over and over ( MSHTML.DLL, etc ) and came to the conclusion that there is a large industry simply trying to convince us they are busy protecting us by doing "something" which amounts to the placebo effect much of the time. There are problems no doubt, but most cannot be solved under the hood because the user himself is the weak link, and phishing through social engineering checkmates everything else, regardless of how many times you change the locks on the doors. Windows Updating has in most cases become busy "make-work", an end in of itself. Sure, read all the scary description excerpts of the "critical" updates ( "this will patch a vulnerability that may allow ..." ) and the user is convinced Microsoft is busy "supporting" their system, keeping it safe and reliable. In my opinion an ever-changing system code-base does not fit that literal definition. Add to that the collateral breakage that often occurs from patching this giant Windows Rube Goldberg machine and I lose interest in this plan. You can literally reinstall an original RTM disc and go on your merry way in most cases, save for some key improvements here and there like LBA large HDD ( WinXP Sp1 ) and these kinds of updates. But not the ceaseless patching and re-patching of the same files and ActiveX registry keys and certificates from a cottage industry of "researchers" that seem to exist only to keep WU busy. I might take them seriously if every patch and update that was released got rolled up into a master-patcher application, totally version independent ( including old OS versions! ), and was always available for download from a static URL for anybody. It should run and locate all deviations from the "norm" and offer options to repair them. If they were serious about security and if it actually mattered, this would have been done long ago. One single file to download periodically and execute. Not hundreds of patches with prerequisites and reboots and failures.

Realtime AV? I always felt that the realtime antivirus medicine was worse than the disease since I can just pop the HDD out, stick it into another computer, run on-demand scanning and manually fix anything broken. The realtime AV also can actually prevent repairs even after it allowed the very malware into the system in the first place. In practice, most of them are "busy" applications with some utilizing up to 10 tasks and services all the time. They enjoy using Microsoft's patented planned obsolescence with constantly changing engines and upgrades and the commercial ones then threaten to not protect you if you don't pay. I always despised the fact that the AV industry never agreed on a common shared detection definition database. Crowd sourcing has proved itself far superior to incremental selective knowledge stores, and this is a topic that cries out for it. Let them keep their proprietary engine, runtime and GUI designs but not the core database. The divergence in detection signature data with no way for any user to determine which AV company has a better dataset is a bridge too far IMHO. And then we have the intolerable realtime attack by the white-hat AV software on the user when they click on a folder in Explorer or insert removable media, grabbing huge CPU and disk I/O scanning every file where you just browsed or on an inserted flashdrive, and then proceeds to delete or quarantine without so much as a prompt. That was the last straw for me after having carefully crafted flashdrives full of utilities raped and pillaged by the friendly AV company. Ironically, much of the time it is simply UPX or similar packed files that are removed ( Nirsoft, you gotta drop UPX! ). None of the AV packages have expert mode, only a few have a gaming mode, and fewer still have an easy way to terminate realtime scanning. None of these features are easily available ( single click ) from the tray icon. So just like Windows 8 the AV software evolved solely for the common denominator, the careless, inept, rookie user that needs protection from himself, and even then it still does not work because these types of users will gleefully click on a message that offers to double their computer speed for free.

So I took this particular computer I inherited and set about calling Microsoft's and the security industry's and the paranoid fanboy's bluffs. It gets murdered by me in day-to-day testing of unmentionable programs and applications and visiting websites that Google and Bing warn about and sometimes don't even list. It remains stable, mostly frozen in time a little after SP3 when the owner, a good friend passed away ( I keep this running as a personal tribute ). Looking at Nirsoft WinUpdatesList I see that a few recent ones got executed, not from Windows Update ( which has been disabled for years ), but from some program installers ( Visual Studio, Corel, Adobe, etc ) that carry along Windows patches. Also I will run ad hoc updates as needed for things like C runtime libraries. The reason for stability IMHO is that I am not granting Microsoft carte blanche permission to go on a file changing rampage through Windows Update every morning at 3am. To tell the truth, things might be still be fine even if I did run WU, because I would stay right on top of it noting any changes to manually rollback from should they cause problems. But the main point is that being a slave to WU and Microsoft itself is just silly. You can get away with a complete reinstall to RTM or SP1 of any operating system and as long as you are careful, you'll walk away just fine.

Having said that, I do not do this for clients. They get the full approved treatment, realtime antivirus ( MSE ) and MBAM for on-demand. This covers my butt when they click on Nigerian email links to collect their princely inheritance and MSIE dutifully downloads trojans while MSE lets it happen. If they come back loaded with malware, I pop out the drive and fix it so they can take it home and do it all over again. :lol:

EDIT: typo

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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Microsoft releases free My Server app for Windows 8 ( NeoWin 2013-02-01 )

The app's description says that with this app, Windows 8 and Windows RT PC owners can use it to access and even edit shared files on servers that are running Windows Server 2012 Essentials. It offers support for searching for documents on both your Windows 8/RT PC and the server's shared folders. It will even allow users to access recently opened filed on the server even if the app is not connected to the server at that time.

There are no words. :no: Absolutely none ... at ... all. :no: Click on the spoiler to see for yourself ...

My-Server-Windows-Store-app-620x335.jpg

Windows 8 close behind Windows XP in latest Steam hardware survey ( NeoWin 2013-02-02 )

And they show a graphic that breaks down the operating system used by Steam clients. I'm not sure this really means what they want it to mean.

First of all this is only gamers, and only gamers specifically using Steam. I don't know about anyone else, but while there are some good games and some hardcore gamers on Steam ( and I do read Maximum PC and PC Gamer and others ), it is sill a small subset of all gaming, and more importantly it has a lot of fluff available, almost as much as the Microsoft Store, or Flash and Java game websites. Steam has all types of gamers, the result should be skewed toward the average user in the same way a poll of system administrators would expect to be skewed away from the average user. Steam has many average users because it is by design a simple drop-in solution for those that don't tweak and drive themselves mad eeking every framerate out of their games. To summarize, it is not that Steam shows gamer adoption of the crappy new Windows 8 , it actually shows adoption by the average gamer - the normal people, just as expected.

Secondly, one could make the argument that people using Windows 8 are using Steam to get away from it and it's Playskool Metro and the pathetic Microsoft Store with apps consisting of canned webpages. One might also argue that Steam users on Windows 8 are there for the under-the-hood improvements such as miniscule speedups in rebooting and some other areas, things that nobody complained about in the first place. So, in this instance, citing Steam user adoption of the crappy new Windows would seem to be going against their point. They want the under-the-hood improvements without having to look at the ReTard interface. Once they are in Steam, they are doing exactly that.

Finally, even these numbers are suspect since it is a voluntary poll. Voluntary! See: Steam Hardware & Software Survey: January 2013: "Steam conducts a monthly survey to collect data about what kinds of computer hardware and software our customers are using. Participation in the survey is optional, and anonymous. The information gathered is incredibly helpful to us as we make decisions about what kinds of technology investments to make and products to offer." People that are most computer savvy and concerned with security and anonymity do not respond to these things in the same way they do not allow telemetry data back to Microsoft ( talking to you Sinofsky, Julie, Jensen, etc ). I'm not saying this data is bogus, but it should come close to mirroring the Microsoft data that led to the MetroTard decision-making rationalizing removal of the Start Menu. What would be interesting is just how fast the Windows Store or Start Screen would be removed for lack of interest if there was an automatic response to this kind of telemetry. :lol:

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eBay Auctions for "Windows 8 Pro Upgrade" ... 2013-02-02

Recall that the price just went from $39.99 to $199.99. Anyone could buy a number of these licenses and resell them later, presumably for some serious profit, right? I mean, if there ever was such a thing as a "sure thing" this would be it, right? Let's take a look. ...

  • 27cf6ae5c1 ... $39.88 ( 3 sold )
  • 3cce653548 ... $39.00 ( 20 sold )

Using Windows 8 Pro Upgrade" Digital finds 7 completed but 0 active ...

  • 35c35b8cf6 ... $17.01 ( 9 bids )
  • 460bb21309 ... $15.59 ( buy it now )
  • 460baa72e0 ... $14.99 ( 0 bids )
  • 1e7601c830 ... $43.00 ( 8 bids )
  • 27ce9faf33 ... $14.99 ( 1 bid )
  • 35c32bedfb ... $40.00 ( 1 bid )
  • 1e76141fbc ... $37.99 ( 1 bid )

Frankly I'm not sure what to make of this at all. I am completely surprised. This is my surprised face. :unsure:

You would think that Paul Thurrott and Ed Bott and a few hundred NeoWinians would be crawling all over each other to snap up these deals.

Let's look at two possible tech industry investment opportunities with eerily similar buy-ins ...

Facebook IPO ( May 18, 2012 ) ... $38.00 ... currently $ 29.73

Microsoft Windows 8 Pro IPO .... $39.99 ... currently $199.99

In the former case you actually had to take a risk because you had no idea what the stock would be selling for weeks and months later.

In the latter case investors knew everything in order to make a profit. Everything!

I think I will need to see some Thurrott or NeoWhiner explanations in order to properly understand this. :lol:

EDIT: typo

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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Stalking probs throughout a system,like everyday,became nauseous :puke:

As far as I know, RFA (RegistryFirstAid) is a crisp in registry-tweaking, tho.. :sneaky:

Yesteryears, including w7, RFA obeyed any reg. task, without a complain..

When Ive tried the same in a W8, all Metro apps stops working..omg..only sys.restore brings all stuff in a previous state.

Actually, Ive applied RFA's default trigger tweaking, regardless, thats screwed up some Metro related keys in a reg.base.

Any hint on appropriate reg. tweaking app for a w8 ?

btw, Ive just saw a thread about a _win8 reg tweak_..so mod. please, move it to there.

Edited by TheBigBang
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About pricing, I never managed to understand marketing strategies, but this one sounds even more "queer" than usual.

If you have something that can be placed on the market (and be on average "competitive" against other similar product) for (say) US$ 100.00, the first thing the good marketing guys do is to price it at 99.99 (and there is a whole literature about how moronic are morons that "like" x.99 prices over the same y.00 same price), see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_pricing

This is stupid, but seemingly all over the world .

Next step is (as said earlier) "bundling", basically you add to the product a number of other things that either have no or little costs or actual use or that are not actually much used but that are perceived as "added" value to "justify" the price.

I will dare :ph34r: to say that in computing this is now the 64 bit Operating System :w00t: (hey, my processor has more bits than yours!).

Now, since you have all those added bits you must have more RAM to use them, right? And we nicely give you some more RAM that you wouldn't otherwise need for a very fair price.

Then come the "promotions", such as "introductory offers".

So you have this US$ 100.00 valued on the market product that you price 99.99 with an introductory offer of (still say) 20% discount and place it on the market at 79.99 instead of the "regular" price of 99.99.

Supposing that this is actually (or it is soon to become) a hot selling item, the marketing guru's will be LIMITED but the actual to apply this introductory offer to ONLY a limited amount of items.

This is logical, you have some sound calculations that to cover development, manufacturing, advertising, shipment, etc. costs you have to sell, say 1,000,000 units at 100.00, i.e. get 100,000,000.

Then you know that to create interest, make a self-referring mass, etc, you can shorten the time by selling 10% of those at a 20% discount.

In the end the actual discount (in the sense of reduced income) is 2% or 10% of 20%.

When you use (as opposed to the limited quantity) a deadline such as 31st of January this starts to be "less sound", but on "real" items you can use it all the same, because you do know how many items will be on the market as you know how many of them you will produce and send to the shops by that time, so it is almost the same as setting a limit on the number of items.

But here we have something a little bit different.

The difference between the "introductory offer" and the "standard retail price" is not the "logical" 10%, 20% or even 30%.

You are going to tell your customers (or potential ones), that they can have something (Windows 8 Pro upgrade) now for 39.99 but soon they will only be able to get it for 199.99.

1-(39.99/199.99)=0.80 or 80% discount.

Then, you sell LESS THAN EXPECTED items at the heavily discounted price BUT keep the (senseless) deadline the same.

This turns apparently in a saving (IF you can sell anyway enough of the stuff at the full price).

Here we have something even worse, seemingly a part of the items you sold at the discounted price were acquired to be re-sold at the time the offer will end.

I.e., besides the competition with other OS, you have managed to create an "internal" competition, allowing people to sell the same product but to a much lower price than the one you are selling (or wishing to sell) it at.

Most probably it is just me.... :unsure:

jaclaz

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Have a Surface RT? You can trade it in towards the purchase of a Surface Pro ( NeoWin 2013-02-03 )

Hmmm, gotta say, I didn't see this coming. Actually a great deal for those that got suckered into buying a non-x86 toy tablet. Could this mean that their latest move into ARM is being aborted like many other Microsoft projects? Probably not. They have written OS's for non-x86 platforms, including ARM for decades now. If I had to guess it would be that they want out of the hardware side of ARM only, but will continue to make "Windows" for it. That is, if they can find any OEMs willing to make the hardware and so far there are only two if I recall. Maybe this has something to do with the Dell deal that will be finalized in a few days?

Microsoft uses headlines to read the future ( NeoWin 2013-02-03 )

Another taste of AI ( Artificial Intelligence ). I wish they would first perfect all the current attempts before teasing us with new ones ( voice input still very rough, language translators laughable, computer voice output from text is simply horrific and robotic ). So this thing will make predictions after scanning historical headlines huh? You think they will scan the headlines of the past two years concerning Windows? :lol: How about headlines about Ballmer? How about the Wall Street headlines about Microsoft? In the interest of the survival of Windows and Microsoft itself, I offer ... some Bing headlines they could examine ... some Google headlines they could examine ... now get to work and learn something!

Microsoft Surface Pro now on display in some retail stores ( NeoWin 2013-02-03 )

They have a picture up there at NeoWin showing what I believe is the pen attached to the side of this tablet, instead of stored internally. Is this possible? They could not make the thing a half-inch wider to accommodate an internal hole so that the pen could pop-in and pop-out? Googling around I found this site (which frankly does a better job than Microsoft with explanations and photos ) and they have this picture ...

... and I'd say it definitely looks magnetically attached! :blink: For real? A high-priced Apple-style boutique gadget and they overlook something like this? ~sigh~ It's still amateur hour at Microsoft.

EDIT: typos, fixed busted image link. Arrgh, busted again, just click the page link

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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windows8marketshare.jpg

Formfiller ... forgot to mention this earlier, but NeoWin loves to change URLs on the images a few days after publishing a story. Note the blank box. They may even be blocking outside links to the photos and possibly preventing sites like this one access. Whatever, it's their loss.

You can however copy them to a 3rd party host ( sever-to-server ) with sites like imgur, which is pretty darn good. So is PhotoBucket but I read something about it not being available here on this forum to all members, or something like that.

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Given Windows 8 2 cracks of the whip now and still can't get it to work properly. First time around bad_pool_header BSOD's whenever using Vlite to master a Vista image for a client, second time around constant malfunctions of my USB devices. Despite the insistence of Hawkman from Neowin (Who is essentially more of a smug and arrogant know it all than a real tech enthusiast) that my USB filter drivers were not installed, I couldn't find them being offered for my board or my Renesas USB chipsets. Nor have I ever had to install them in Windows 7, even through Windows update. I also had episodes where Media Center would just randomly stop responding to my remote inputs. The update was only £14.99 but I still feel like I wasted my money. It's going to be a long while before I try using Windows 8 again, it's staggering that it would work so badly on a computer I built at the end of 2011

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Stalking probs throughout a system,like everyday,became nauseous :puke:

As far as I know, RFA (RegistryFirstAid) is a crisp in registry-tweaking, tho.. :sneaky:

Yesteryears, including w7, RFA obeyed any reg. task, without a complain..

When Ive tried the same in a W8, all Metro apps stops working..omg..only sys.restore brings all stuff in a previous state.

Actually, Ive applied RFA's default trigger tweaking, regardless, thats screwed up some Metro related keys in a reg.base.

Despite what I've been told by PC store techs about how the Win8 desktop is "just like 7," and that Metro is simply built "on top of it," obviously it is not. A program (like Registry First Aid) that you used fine in 7, seems to screw up 8.

Hmm, if RFA stops all Metro apps from working... :sneaky: ...then maybe whatever they do could serve as the foundation for a Metro killer. B)

The problem that you report, may become the solution for Windows 8!

--JorgeA

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He's back. Paul "The Desktop Must Die" Thurrott returns with his next attempt at rationalizing Microsoft destroying Windows, in ...

Second Guessing Microsoft’s Surface Strategy ( Thurrott 2013-02-03 )

... which at face value imparts the impression that he is once again suggesting improvements. Indeed, the subtitle actually says: "If only Surface with Windows 8 Pro had launched first....", and he writes a few paragraphs using an alternate timeline which he believes would have changed the reception of Surface and Windows 8 itself. Clearly he is coming to terms with the painful fact that he called it all wrong. But there is something he still hasn't wrapped his mind around. He proves this by reverting to form, cheerleading for the death of "Windows" once again ...

Surface with Windows RT represents a future in which the Windows desktop is first deprecated and then removed, where Windows itself settles firmly and solely into the Metro mobile environment. To desktop PC adherents, this is a dystopian future, a hardline approach to ongoing industry trends. But if Microsoft is correct, and I think it is, this is the future. The problem, of course, is that it is the future, not the present. We don’t live in the future.

Surface with Windows RT is indeed a no compromises peek at the future of Windows. It offers a vestigial desktop environment only because it has to, because Microsoft didn’t have time to completely replace every single desktop utility with Metro equivalents, and because Office, today, runs almost solely in the desktop. This very rigid and inflexible system is not ideal for almost any users today because it is basically not Windows, not today. That is, it doesn’t benefit from almost any of the best reasons people choose Windows today.

That will change, assuming Microsoft's vision for the future of Windows pans out and customers accept and embrace Metro.

First we need to completely understand his position, which is easy because he has spoken of it on quite a few occasions. "Windows" must die, Microsoft will replace it with an "ecosystem" of apps written in RT, which are little more than canned webpages. The previous paradigm of the x86 universe had it completely wrong. Private software developers who directly marketed their wares directly to the public without going through Microsoft approval and without giving them a cut were scabs and an abomination. Windows software that accessed the nearly limitless capabilities of the hardware through an infinite selection of authoring tools, programming languages and rich APIs were incorrect and unfair because they bypassed the equalized playing field of a platform limited to web-like HTML+CSS. Paul Thurrott envisions returning to the equivalent of the early days with only BASIC, which was so limited it immediately led to DOS and Windows tools using C and higher level development environments as well as major additions to hardware capabilities with ever-growing CPU features, video modes added to display adapters, an exponentially advancing platform that allows a programmer the ability to create almost anything they could dream of. But they were all wrong. An alternate route should have been taken in 1980, an alternate platform should have been used. Something a little more RISCy like maybe staying on 8080, or 8008 or 4004, or maybe just jumping to Motorola 68xxx or earlier, or any of a number of RISC chips. Oh wait, don't we still have RISC chips these days? Of course we do. ARM has been around forever, so has Alpha and MIPS and SPARC and PPC. And guess what? Microsoft has already been targeting most of them all along, with Windows. So what is it that Paul is really demanding? Why this apparent love for alternate platforms? He sounds like an Apple fanboy in some ways, "hey, x86 sucks, you need Power PC" ( just replace "Power PC" with any fanboy platform of choice ).

In reality, what he is demanding is that Microsoft do exactly what I first suspected. Convert the vast, wild and untamed x86 universe into Microsoft's private farm for sowing and harvesting at will. That x86 universe is a huge target of opportunity that they simply cannot resist. The Plan? They want to first train these billions of x86 users into accepting Metro and Windows 8 by forcing it down their throats through the OEM back-channel and via a billion dollar propaganda campaign. Presumably they will flock like mindless zombies into the store demanding even more Metro and Windows 8 on their cellphones and tablets and maybe TV sets later. Quite the cynical and evil plan in my opinion. This x86 universe is not Microsoft's private pickings, most of these people didn't voluntarily walk in and demand Windows. It is pretty much criminal in the monopolist sense since it would be the equivalent of John Rockefeller getting millions of customers using his oil, gasoline and kerosene for many years and then suddenly switching to natural gas and demanding they buy new cars, furnaces and lights to accommodate it. It's not a perfect analogy for several reasons, most importantly the scale is off, way off. Rockefeller never came close to having billions of victims, he settled for mere millions. Ironically though, his monopoly did in fact exactly match Microsoft's 90+% monopoly of all available customers. Microsoft is presently several orders of magnitude greater in monopolized victims than Standard Oil or any of the railroad and banking barons of the past. Ironically, the small downward trend of Microsoft's monopoly in recent years is exactly what has them panicked in the first place. They see a few points lost to competitors and immediately make moves to lurch deeper into the monopolist mentality. That lurch leads to this plan to get those billions of x86 Windows users onto the locked-down Metro reservation where Microsoft is the gatekeeper to everything and takes a Soprano cut on apps whether they write them or not. It really is a pathetic but expected evolution of the iOS universe with iTunes and the Apple store, completely born out of one of the Seven Deadly Sins: jealousy. ( Wikipedia lists them as Lust Gluttony Greed Sloth Wrath Envy Pride, so Microsoft clearly has several of them covered ).

Consider something else: this notion that "Windows" must and will be replaced by Metro. "Windows" as it stands is a platform, software written for "Windows" runs on "Windows" ( except in the many cases where Microsoft has deliberately employed planned obsolescence causing programs not to run without using a different version of Windows ). The replacement that Microsoft and Thurrott and Bott endorse is essentially webpages. This is sadly ironic since the web was scoffed at by Microsoft at first, nearly everyone else got there ahead of them, and they needed to play dirty to catch up. When other attempts at web-style platform-independent canned apps came along ( Java ) they fought it like mad, playing dirty again. All kinds of spin-off platform subsets and frameworks with lock-ins have popped up and even .NET falls into this arena. The question is, why would anyone go along with the late-comer Microsoft, in what they say this time? Especially when we know there are no technological advantages to Metro and Microsoft-Store lock-in. Quite the opposite. It is a neutered version of the vast array of possibilities available to today's creative programmer. The best you can ever accomplish is a fancy webpage that looks exactly like what would be expected if you handed an elementary school class the assignment to write a homepage for a fictitious coffee company. The entire reason behind this naked power-grab is cynical. The lock-in is all about control, and nothing more. It is about Microsoft becoming the firmware on your computer, standing between you and the hardware, demanding payment at every possible step. A time will come when they will meter the email and all web-access as well as their store. Instead of an ISP, they dream of becoming the CSP, computer service provider. The ultimate toll-booth collector.

The biggest tell in his writings is when Thurrott uses phrases like: "... a hardline approach to ongoing industry trends". This pretty much underlines the root cause of Paul Thurrott's, Ed Bott's, and Microsoft's misunderstanding. What we see is rapid deployment ( and inevitable saturation ) of various small form factors of computer size. Essentially every possible size smaller than the desktop box with its 17" to 24" screen will become available and be sold in short order. What they see, or actually, what they believe they see is that the desktop is being replaced by this trend. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, some will be completely replaced by people that never needed a workstation in the first place. Others will merely supplement their setup with various convenient form factors to match their needs. Still others will avoid portable devices altogether. The trend of small devices will no more replace large devices than cars will replace trucks. Imagine if in the late 1970's when there was an invasion of small death-trap form factor automobiles the car companies were to close down the lines producing sedans, limos, pickups, box trucks, school buses, and tractor trailers, from following an incorrectly perceived trend. What they actually did was scale down to match demand, not shutdown which is exactly what Thurrott thinking leads to. The analogy can be better shaped by imagining that the car companies not only shutdown the previous successful lines and produced only Datsun B210 and Vega sized crapmobiles, but they also modified and marketed them for long haul shipping and school buses. Think square pegs and round holes. We don't throw out all the old tools we have when we get a new set of box-end wrenches or screwdrivers. In the real world we use the right tool for the job. And we keep the old ones too.

Now if Microsoft is fed up with the workstation operating system business, and being completely overwhelmed with Apple-envy decided to narrowly focus on dumb-terminals for MetroTards, well, that would be another thing entirely. But I don't hear this from Microsoft, or their propaganda task force of Thurrott, Bott and numerous MicroZealots. If this is what they decide, they owe it to billions of people to come clean and state it outright, not drop a surprise atomic bomb on the world later. And not do it sneakily by attempting to convert and absorb this wide audience into their Orwellian Animal MetroFarm. This is where the moral, ethical, and legal issues collide. They have a unique monopoly position, and they have great power, but they also have a greater responsibility. They chose to supply the operating system that enables a billion computers to operate. The next step they take must be moral, ethical, and legal. Manipulating and drafting these users into their "ecosystem" for their self-serving purposes is none of those things. This is precisely where the MicroZealots cross the line because they fully believe it is moral, ethical, and legal for Microsoft to do this and more. This is why there is such a great divide and such controversy and argument. On the one hand we are criticizing them for abusing their near complete monopoly, on the other hand the MicroZealots are cheer-leading and demanding even more.

What should happen? In a perfect world Microsoft would have been broken up long ago ( and I was among those that didn't think so ) with the operating system division sent a million miles away from everyone else. They produce something allegedly for the benefit of all developers, not just Microsoft software, so having them under the same roof was asking for trouble. It is kind of like Standard Oil getting in bed with the railroads creating a monopoly that controlled everything. It is probably too late now considering some of the people we have seen pass through the ranks of the operating system division like Sinofsky, so they may be too corrupted anyway. An amicable solution would let them go on pursuing their Metro Madness and their quest to copy Apple but having them release the x86 Windows source code and all related patents to the public. Not a perfect scenario considering how disorganized GPL can be but better than what we will have if things continue as they are. That would be a hugely beneficial move to the billion plus users out there, and obviously it would be moral, ethical, and legal. However, even though it would clearly neutralize and blunt any accusation of abusing their monopoly, I have little faith that Microsoft is ethical or moral enough to even consider such a step. Then again, if you consider the solutions actually applied in the past to Rockefeller and others there is some possibility of the Feds stepping in and forcing them to do it anyway. As I am fond of saying lately, one can still dream.

EDIT: typos

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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...

one can still dream.

Excellent excellent excellent excellent post! :wub: A small add-on to it would be that the developer community as a whole has a huge responsibility here. They should not develop any "Metro" "Apps" AT ALL. Let it just die. I know I will not develop any "App" ever for it... do you hear me Steve Ballmer? Yes, that's right... I said NEVER EVER. I will create everything on the web now. The day comes where they lock down that too, well I will quit computer business and will not miss it for one second.

The entire reason I joined and kept at the computer business from when I was a kid until now was/is TO DO AS I PLEASE ON THE HARDWARE WHICH IS MINE. If they want to take my freedom away and become another utility company... it's fine... they are within their rights...

but...

My PC was always my home, because I was in peace inside it. It was my castle. I will not join and support them becoming a utility company nor accept this trend. I will find some other place to call home.

If someday it's all gone and everything is locked down, I know I tried. I did not develop any "Metro" "App"... so you, the developer who reads my post in the future. Remember it. Make sure you can look back in 10 years from now and say "You did your part to prevent it" too, because this time around, we cannot only blame Microsoft and OEMs. This time around, the blame will also lay upon us, the developer community. It is our choice to make this monster grow or kill it right now. Without the developer community, this "Metro" monster will die. Die hard and die quick. :hello:

Edited by ciHnoN
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This is not ad placement... this is a full advertisement sequence if you ask me!

trlolololololololol... so lame... if I was watching something and such "ad" showed up in middle of the show... I would never watch that show again... then again, I don't have a TV. ;)

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Stalking probs throughout a system,like everyday,became nauseous :puke:

As far as I know, RFA (RegistryFirstAid) is a crisp in registry-tweaking, tho.. :sneaky:

Yesteryears, including w7, RFA obeyed any reg. task, without a complain..

When Ive tried the same in a W8, all Metro apps stops working..omg..only sys.restore brings all stuff in a previous state.

Actually, Ive applied RFA's default trigger tweaking, regardless, thats screwed up some Metro related keys in a reg.base.

Despite what I've been told by PC store techs about how the Win8 desktop is "just like 7," and that Metro is simply built "on top of it," obviously it is not. A program (like Registry First Aid) that you used fine in 7, seems to screw up 8.

Hmm, if RFA stops all Metro apps from working... :sneaky: ...then maybe whatever they do could serve as the foundation for a Metro killer. B)

The problem that you report, may become the solution for Windows 8!

--JorgeA

Im fed up of trying to catch up with a w8 clues..Ive had it!

I doubt it, coz..what 4 probs as Ive been mentioned before..?

It was meant 2b a strawberry on a top of a tart,but its not..Metro isnt in a state of the art..obviously.

Solution would b downgrade to w7,till the day w8/SP2 rise up. :thumbup

This is not ad placement... this is a full advertisement sequence if you ask me!

trlolololololololol... so lame... if I was watching something and such "ad" showed up in middle of the show... I would never watch that show again... then again, I don't have a TV. ;)

:D ..the easiest way culprit 2b found.

Its a troll, how classic&pathetic!

Edited by TheBigBang
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windows8marketshare.jpg

Formfiller ... forgot to mention this earlier, but NeoWin loves to change URLs on the images a few days after publishing a story. Note the blank box. They may even be blocking outside links to the photos and possibly preventing sites like this one access. Whatever, it's their loss.

Ah, didn't know that. Thanks!

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