Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[jaclaz]

NOT "strictly" Windows 8 connected, but near :

http://www.osnews.com/thread?551437

Selected parts:

UEFI is just a whole bunch of new ways for your machine to fail or misbehave. If you think ACPI was bad enough, wait till you get a load of UEFI firmware bugs, such as DMA'ing network packets over a region of memory where it wasn't supposed to (causing random OS crashes), or, as in the case of Samsung, bricking your machine because some OS had the audacity to follow Samsung's own declared APIs.

The BIOS was crap, but at least it was simple. It loaded into predictable locations, and all we needed was a simple set of BIOS extensions in well specified regions to provide new features. Instead, this UEFI crap was concieved of, with the spec itself over a [redacted] 2200 pages long.

With a spec this long, it's no wonder firmware vendors (who are crap at producing even workable BIOSes) will produce terrible implementations.

To install an MBR boot virus you'd need write access to the MBR (and it's extremely easy to detect if that sector has been modified). Also, the MBR boot virus would need to run in real mode while all sane OSs switch to protected mode (or long mode) and discard all of the real mode code, so an MBR virus can't easily do anything after the OS has booted. These are the things that makes an MBR boot virus a waste of time.

For UEFI, everything typically sits on a big FAT partition with no security whatsoever; and various parts of UEFI remain (and may be executed as privileged code) after the OS boots. These things combined mean that (without secure boot) UEFI is a massive security disaster.

Secure boot is an attempt to fix UEFI's huge gaping security holes. It's very necessary.

I have rarely seen words as wise condensed in such a few sentences.

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

A

of Windows 8 by the same guy whose blog I quoted a few posts upthread:

Make sure to check out the discussion (starting about 9:35) of how the Charms options change depending on the context, and how confusing that is.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Lenovo: Windows 8 is so good, everyone wants Windows 7. We'll just leave Redmond's latest OS on this DVD, over here. ( UK Register 2013-03-18 )

Lenovo ditches Windows 8 for 7 for the enterprise ( NeoWin 2013-03-19 )

You don't notch up 15 consecutive quarters of growth in a declining market without doing something right - so what's PC maker Lenovo doing right?

Well, many things. But it can't do any harm that Lenovo is protecting enterprises from the waterboarding torture of the Microsoft Windows 8 operating system. The majority of Lenovo's enterprise shipments have Windows 7 installed; the touchscreen-friendly Windows 8 is discreetly bundled on its own separate disc.

The computer maker even throws in a Start Menu for Windows 8, which is installable from the Lenovo software bundle.

The company wouldn't be drawn on the exact ratio of Windows 7 to Windows 8 machines shipped.

Save that link for the fanboys who like Moonie cultists or Stepford Wives reflexively throw up the alleged success of Lenovo as a sign of promise ( and really it is just Nokia and Lenovo at this point that anyone will ever point to! ). The only reason there are any Windows 8 systems is that Microsoft is using its highly developed monopoly to leverage this abomination into the user space. Unfortunately for Microsoft and her zealots and enablers, this story shows that when it comes to self-preservation, the OEMs are beginning to grow a spine and show some signs of intelligence.

EDIT: added another article

Edited March 19, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[HalloweenDocument12]

Because of its problems, Windows 8 isn't fun to use, at least for me. Whatever sense of joy I get from the cool new graphics is outweighed by a feeling that my productivity is being reduced. Think of the best new app or website you've ever discovered; the feeling you got the first time you understood the power of Twitter or you created a presentation and it came out looking great. That feeling of empowerment and excitement is critical to getting people started with a new technology. But Windows 8 makes makes me feel limited and cramped. It isn't a launch pad, it's a cage.

When I read this I thought of all the "Flash websites" that sprung up circa 1998-2000. The text was very small, not scalable, and not indexed by search engines. The layout was fixed and always shoved to the upper-left corner of the browser window. Sometimes sound would be unexpectedly loud, mouseovers over every element would generate sound, and the sounds would stack and combine into a crackling, distorted, speaker blowing mess. Still, despite all this, Flash websites were "the future" and HTML was all but dead. The more sane at the time proclaimed Flash as a companion or replacement for Java, to be used for games, novelties, and, later on, ads.

I think Microsoft is scared that it might be permanently closed out of the new markets, so it wants to force people onto Metro before that happens. I believe that's really why it eliminated the Start menu. If Start is still there, Windows users could live for years without learning much about Metro. But with Start gone, Windows users will have to use bits of Metro now, and Microsoft believes they'll naturally embrace it once they've been forced to use it.

"Fundamentally, we believe in people and their ability to adapt and move forward. Throughout the history of computing, people have again and again adapted to new paradigms and interaction methods."

I always get scared when a designer talks about the inevitability of people accepting a change. It's like you're counting on some mystical law of nature to cause a migration, rather than enticing people to move by giving them something that works better than what they have today. That's how the DOS to Windows transition worked -- people could (and did) continue to live in DOS for years until they learned how much more they could get done with Windows. But Microsoft has decided to force the issue. Then it rationalizes the decision with bromides like "we believe in people" and "the DOS users complained a lot too and look how that turned out."

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the number of people who understand this motivation of Microsoft but fail to realize that by pulling the rug from their customers' feet Microsoft is risking exodus to competing products. Change is not inevitable when your product is a less developed version of what the competition offers. I think Microsoft of the 90s was scared that despite all their work that Windows 95 still might not be convincing over Macintosh and/or the previous interfaces (DOS and/or Windows 3), which while loathed by many was still profitable. This Microsoft is pretending competition doesn't exist, even though it is far more established in the target market.

The story about people willingly using DOS for years is disingenuous. Almost everybody converted instantly because Windows 95 was such an upgrade. They had to because the Internet didn't really work with DOS, and even if the Internet wasn't of interest, Windows 95's ad-hoc networking was still superior to the unaffordable Netware on DOS. The problem was that it took years for new industry-specific software to be written so people were forced to stick with DOS for a keystone program, which ran in a real-mode window within Windows 95-98. People hated this at worst and tolerated it at best. Though Progman.exe and Fileman.exe were still around, no one used them and accepted Explorer as an upgrade over Windows 3.

Edited March 18, 2013 by HalloweenDocument12

[Tripredacus]

Windows 8 in the Enterprise are causing headaches for administrators apparently. Some of the functions of Windows 8 such as Mail and others absolutely require that you are logged in using your Live account in order to function. Companies that are now purchasing Windows 8 systems have 2 problems with this:

1. They do not want to administer/manage hundreds of Microsoft accounts for their users

2. They do not want their users to use their personal accounts (if they even have them).

Read some frustrated posts here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itproinstall/thread/8124f5da-dd2f-4866-85de-5d369abe1450

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

"Fundamentally, we believe in people and their ability to adapt and move forward. Throughout the history of computing, people have again and again adapted to new paradigms and interaction methods."

I always get scared when a designer talks about the inevitability of people accepting a change. It's like you're counting on some mystical law of nature to cause a migration, rather than enticing people to move by giving them something that works better than what they have today. That's how the DOS to Windows transition worked -- people could (and did) continue to live in DOS for years until they learned how much more they could get done with Windows. But Microsoft has decided to force the issue. Then it rationalizes the decision with bromides like "we believe in people" and "the DOS users complained a lot too and look how that turned out."

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the number of people who understand this motivation of Microsoft but fail to realize that by pulling the rug from their customers' feet Microsoft is risking exodus to competing products. Change is not inevitable when your product is a less developed version of what the competition offers. I think Microsoft of the 90s was scared that despite all their work that Windows 95 still might not be convincing over Macintosh and/or the previous interfaces (DOS and/or Windows 3), which while loathed by many was still profitable. This Microsoft is pretending competition doesn't exist, even though it is far more established in the target market.

The story about people willingly using DOS for years is disingenuous. Almost everybody converted instantly because Windows 95 was such an upgrade. They had to because the Internet didn't really work with DOS, and even if the Internet wasn't of interest, Windows 95's ad-hoc networking was still superior to the unaffordable Netware on DOS. The problem was that it took years for new industry-specific software to be written so people were forced to stick with DOS for a keystone program, which ran in a real-mode window within Windows 95-98. People hated this at worst and tolerated it at best. Though Progman.exe and Fileman.exe were still around, no one used them and accepted Explorer as an upgrade over Windows 3.

Yep. That meme about "same thing happening in Windows 95" is complete utter bullcrap. Even the most unintelligent person should be able to see the contradictory nature of stating it because If that meme were true we would have rejected Win95 and stayed with DOS and WinDOS v3.xx. Yet here we are.

As you stated, people ran as fast as they could to the new and more stable multithreaded and multitasking paradigm, and the GUI was a tiny part of the transition. There were very few people wedded to the WinDOS ProgMan interface, it had only existed about 5 years in total but aside from us long-timers, most people had perhaps a year or two experience in it tops. Now contrast that to the Start Menu when it was removed by Sinofsky and Jensen Harris, it had a minimum 17-year pedigree already, thus the meme fails yet again on the basis of comparing apples and oranges. And to satisfy those very very few people that might want the Win3x interface, ProgMan was included along with FileMan. This whole notion of resistance to Win95 is nothing more than a Big Lie and is meant to tamp down the real resistance to Windows 8 Playskool Edition. All those things you listed are true, and more. Although we no longer think of Win9x as crashproof compared to NT/2K/XP and later, it was an order of magnitude more stable than any earlier attempts at running multiple programs simultaneously. I still marvel at the thought of successfully running Win95 with 8 MB RAM and on a few hundred MB HDD at 66 MHz. Because of paging, any size programs would run if you had the patience to wait for the disk thrashing. Networking, Printing, WYSIWYG, etc, it all came together at once ( PnP growing pains and other caveats notwithstanding ). Of course no sooner than they had a winner than Microsoft already began unraveling things by mismanaging the code and feature growth by fattening things up in Win98, but I digress.

It really just reinforces what I have long thought, we are not dealing with logical or even rational people here. We are dealing with children who comprise Generation Xbox or Generation ReTard ( you pick ). The question is, can both camps, normal folks and Generation ReTard co-exist under the same roof? I think not. We could in the past because Microsoft provided many different products to satisfy different customers. But then some genius decided that one size fits all, and here we are.

To use yet another auto analogy, it is as if during a trend towards small compact high-mileage cars ( phones and tablets with long battery life ) the automakers decided to forget large transportation rather than scale to accommodate the alleged new trend. There will always be more cars than trucks ... but ... there still will always be trucks. It is as simple as that. And in a nutshell, this highlights Microsoft's craziness. Using cars instead of trucks or school buses ( like Thurrott replacing his workstation with Surface ) is irrational. Making trucks look and operate like cars ( shoehorning Metro and other crap into the desktop ) is equally stoopid. And it's not like Microsoft operates custom assembly lines created for each particular product form factor which need to be physically re-tooled at great expense to switch over. Their product is bits and bytes, and they all live in the same virtual space. The cries of "it's more efficient to unify the code" is complete utter self-serving garbage that only benefits Microsoft, like everything we are hearing from them these days.

Technology is meant to adapt to customer demands, NOT vice versa. When the customer adapts to the technology they are merely slaves to the whims of the company, in this case the monopolist Microsoft. Devolving the already evolved technology down to the lowest common denominator is the worst possible idea of them all.

EDIT: clarity

Edited March 18, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[JorgeA]

Windows 8 in the Enterprise are causing headaches for administrators apparently. Some of the functions of Windows 8 such as Mail and others absolutely require that you are logged in using your Live account in order to function. Companies that are now purchasing Windows 8 systems have 2 problems with this:

1. They do not want to administer/manage hundreds of Microsoft accounts for their users

2. They do not want their users to use their personal accounts (if they even have them).

Read some frustrated posts here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itproinstall/thread/8124f5da-dd2f-4866-85de-5d369abe1450

Wow, the "responders" seem to be remarkably thick-headed (lacking an appreciation of the problem). That Technet thread should be forwarded to Thurrott, Ed Bott and other Win8 apologists and see what they have to say. And also to tech news sites who can spread the word.

However... isn't it possible to avoid the Metro mail and remote desktop apps, as one commenter suggests? Or are those services only available, in Win8, as Metro apps?

--JorgeA

EDIT: for clarity

Edited March 18, 2013 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Technology is meant to adapt to customer demands, NOT vice versa. When the customer adapts to the technology they are merely slaves to the whims of the company, in this case the monopolist Microsoft.

We've had a number of Star Trek references in this thread. Jensen H., Julie L.-G. and their minions are in a way almost like a real-life version of the Borg. They take the attitude that "resistance is futile," they expect that ultimately we will all be assimilated, and reasoning with them is completely useless.

Where'd you find that pic?

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Microsoft abandon the desktop to the Windows Blue

"Clearly, this is a serious change and there are some risks, but the company ready to take that step. This is necessary not only to bring the interface to a single concept, but for ease of reading the OS end users" - said in a private conversation, a source directly involved in the development of new OS.

:realmad:

is this really a translation issue? Maybe it really refers to Windows Azure?

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

I'm following up on this with a Russian speaker for confirmation:

If you hover the mouse pointer over the Google translation, the original Russian appears on the screen. This is how the lead sentence reads:

Корпорация Microsoft планирует отказаться от привычного всем Рабочего стола в своей новой операционной системе Windows Blue.

Note that "Windows Blue" is exactly the phrase that's used in the original (according to the Google translation page).

Not a good sign, if the report is accurate.

--JorgeA

Edited March 18, 2013 by JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Where'd you find that pic?

I made it. Got stacks of them too.

P.S. well I did the text and stuff. Someone else made the visuals, probably this one.

Edited March 19, 2013 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[JorgeA]

Where'd you find that pic?

I made it. Got stacks of them too.

P.S. well I did the text and stuff. Someone else made the visuals, probably this one.

That's very cool, I really oughta learn how to splice images together from different sources.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

More bad news on Windows 8 PC sales:

PC Shipments Could See Double-Digit Drop In Q1: IDC

Word is getting out:

Tablets have been stealing sales from laptops and PCs. And an expected jump from the release of the new Windows 8 PC operating system from Microsoft (MSFT) hasn't materialized, as users have found the touch-screen-optimized OS hard to use.

(emphasis added)

--JorgeA

[HalloweenDocument12]

Technology is meant to adapt to customer demands, NOT vice versa.

This is always where I get stuck. What problem does Windows 8 solve? Sure I can get used to it, but why would I? What's in it for me? If I really wanted an app store experience, why wouldn't I use an iOS and/or Android device which I already own? In light of the bolded statement, Microsoft's market doesn't even make sense: they're targeting a segment who wants "apps" but hasn't bought into either of the mature ecosystems. And they charge more for a less developed experience. Even 80 year olds have iPads.

When the customer adapts to the technology they are merely slaves to the whims of the company, in this case the monopolist Microsoft.

The first time I heard the argument that we need to put up with this stuff because of how Microsoft wants things to be I was literally stunned. It's like my brain melted. Who the hell cares what Microsoft wants? Who are these people who do care? I know some are on payroll but some seem to be pro bono sycophants. My brain is melting again.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Put Google Reader Into the Public Domain (Dvorak PC Magazine 2013-03-18 )

I love this column. You can literally replace every single reference to Google with Microsoft and it would be even more valid! Here is a small excerpt ,,,

"... Instead, it looks like the company, in some brain-dead, cavalier fashion, decided to drop it. "Screw the users. Screw the implications. Screw what anyone thinks. We're Google and what we say goes."

Instead, the company should make Google Reader a public domain open-source system. Give it away to any group that wants it—the Mozilla Foundation, for example.

I've said for years that if a product has a large user base and people have grown to depend on it, then the company, by law, should not be allowed to pull the plug on it without offering it into the public domain. Does Google have any other plans for the code? I don't think so.

Give it up Google. Other people can use Google Reader—and perhaps even make money."

I'd say this especially true for Microsoft because of what they have done by maneuvering themselves into being the sole provider for the operating system to 90+% of the world's x86 computers. This is far more than the anti-monopolist concept of "public utility" ( which can justifiably be taken away in the public interest ) it is more like a "planetary utility", whose prisoners now number in the billions, dwarfing Rockefeller's Standard Oil or J.P. Morgan's U.S. Steel.

Google Reader is just an optional app. No app or any other software can run without an operating system in place interfacing with the hardware and supplying an API to software. This is the business Microsoft chose, and cashed in on to the tune of billions of dollars. Now for the grand finale they want to abuse the monopoly one last time by steering their customer sheeple away from Windows and x86 and independent software forcing them into their own private shearing pen called the Windows 8 and Metro and the Microsoft Store.

Let's rewrite that excerpt ...

... Instead, it looks like the company, in some brain-dead, cavalier fashion, decided to drop it. "Screw the users. Screw the implications. Screw what anyone thinks. We're Microsoft and what we say goes."

Instead, the company should make Microsoft Windows a public domain open-source system. Give it away to any group that wants it—the Mozilla Foundation, for example.

I've said for years that if a product has a large user base and people have grown to depend on it, then the company, by law, should not be allowed to pull the plug on it without offering it into the public domain. Does Microsoft have any other plans for the code? I don't think so.

Give it up Microsoft. Other people can use Microsoft Windows—and perhaps even make money.

Yes, I agree. Give it up Microsoft. Free Windows!

[JorgeA]

Technology is meant to adapt to customer demands, NOT vice versa.

This is always where I get stuck. What problem does Windows 8 solve? Sure I can get used to it, but why would I? What's in it for me? If I really wanted an app store experience, why wouldn't I use an iOS and/or Android device which I already own? In light of the bolded statement, Microsoft's market doesn't even make sense: they're targeting a segment who wants "apps" but hasn't bought into either of the mature ecosystems. And they charge more for a less developed experience. Even 80 year olds have iPads.

When the customer adapts to the technology they are merely slaves to the whims of the company, in this case the monopolist Microsoft.

The first time I heard the argument that we need to put up with this stuff because of how Microsoft wants things to be I was literally stunned. It's like my brain melted. Who the hell cares what Microsoft wants? Who are these people who do care? I know some are on payroll but some seem to be pro bono sycophants. My brain is melting again.

I totally agree. It's hard to wrap my head around that sort of attitude, not only accepting but all-too-often even enthusiastically endorsing and cheerleading whatever "change" is lobbed at them from on high, regardless of what said change actually does. It's almost like some herd instinct vs. the individual who thinks for himself, as in some dystopian sci-fi "B" movie.

We've probably said this before, but if you read the fanboi comments at certain websites that shall remain nameless, you'll find the bulk of Win8 opponents offering logical arguments or substantial reasons for disliking the new OS, while supporters largely engage in name-calling and variations on the non-argument, "it's SOOOOOO cool!!" There are exceptions on each side of course, but I suspect that a content analysis of those comments sections would show this to be the case.

--JorgeA