Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[Formfiller]

Unexpected turn of events on Channel9:

 

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Metro-on-the-desktop-is-a-done-deal/db20a65d4e2c4c91b31fa35c011e712c

 

It reminds me of back in the day I dogfooded an early pre-release build of Win8, and struggling to find the hibernate and logout buttons when I went home one night. The next day I went and spoke to one of the guys in the Windows UX team and said "I want to hibernate my machine, but I can't find out how to do it".

He showed me on his screen: "Oh, you swipe here and click here and click here".

I remember saying to him: "No. You don't get it. I want to turn my machine off, and I can't find out how. If you have to tell me how to find a feature that I want, your UI is broken".

 

...

 

Compound on that the dual killers of giving people the opportunity to continue developing as before (with the language, APIs, libraries and institutional knowledge they have learnt over decades) and the direct business reasons not to upgrade (Win8 apps only work on Win8, Win7 apps run on both, oh and by the way we'll take 30% of your profit), and you don't need a crystal ball to tell that Windows8, as released, was always going to fall flat on its face.

...

 

But Microsoft is in a dangerous new place where it seems to not really get either developers or users. Metro, but also Silverlight and XNA signaled really serious problems at Microsoft with understanding what developers want, and probably did more in those three things than the entire of the rest of the open-source community in getting developers to abandon Microsoft in favor of "open" standards that weren't going to die for no reason because of an organizational shuffle in Redmond.

 

That's from the guy who defended Windows 8 (and the whole of NuMicrosoft) to tooth and nails there, back when I was sparing with them regarding W8 (click here for the whole experience).

 

Now that Microsoft itself is abandoning Windows 8, the shills (Thurrott) and employees (see above) are free to say how much it sucks. They got clearing from the mothership and are now able to admit the obvious, "we were never at war with.."-style.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Formfiller

[NoelC]

What I want to know is how the people driving development are allowed to continue on with a bogus approach after everyone can plainly see it's broken.

 

The "Emperor's New Clothes" story was supposed to end when someone recognizes the fallacy.  Those of us with 2+ brain cells saw it the first hour of the first developer preview.

 

How, in the corporate world, is ANYONE allowed to go on for YEARS with such obviously boneheaded ideas?  Do they have pictures of the boss with his mistress?

 

And now they are rich and retired.

 

-Noel

[jaclaz]

 

And now they are rich and retired.

And not prosecuted  :

http://almostmakessense.com/?comic=use-common-sense

 

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

Microsoft Works to Get Windows 8/RT Users Updated to 8.1

 

With continued reports that some Windows 8.0/RT 8.0 users continue to have trouble updating to 8.1, Microsoft this week released a new automatic update that appears to be aimed at mitigating this problem. It's being tested in select markets and could be more broadly rolled out soon.

 

Paul asks,

 

Why is this needed? You may recall that with Windows 8.1, inexplicably, Microsoft made the update available through the Windows Store. While this update worked fine for many users, some had problems getting the update to install, and if it failed, there's no sure-fire way to get it fixed.

 

The reason for that is pretty clear IMHO: Microsoft wanted to herd users into the Windows Store and for them get a Microsoft account. (That maybe could then be utilized to stalk follow them all around the Web.)

 

More interesting than the news article are the comments at the bottom (some of which support the view about the Windows Store). My favorite one:

 

So this is it, the final ignominy for Microsoft, complete failure with the Windows 8 experiment. Time to raise the white flag.

 

Windows 8.0, failed.
 

Windows RT, failed
 

Surface 1 and 2, both versions, failed.
 

New Start Menu, failed.
 

Metro, failed.

 

Steven Sinofsky? Out
 

Steve Balmer? Out.

 

Forcing desktop customers to use the Windows Store ? Failed.

 

Great summary of events since October 2012.

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

More about that new Start Menu:

 

Start Menu Will Replace Start Screen in Threshold

 

According to my sources at Microsoft, the new Start menu will instead be the entire Start experience in Threshold. That is, there won't be a Start screen and a Start menu. But you will be able to maximize the Start menu so that it takes up the whole screen and looks and works much like the Start screen does today in Windows 8.x.

 

Interestingly, Paul sticks to his assertion that Microsoft had been busily taking out Start Menu code to prevent third parties from providing it:

 

In fact, in the summer before Windows 8 was released, Microsoft engineers very specifically stripped the legacy Start menu from the OS, in part so that third party utilities couldn't bring it back.

 

Apparently, in addition to botching Windows 8 itself, Surface, etc. (see the post above), they botched even this job, as demonstrated by the abundance of Start Menu replacements. 

 

A comment down below in that Thurrott article that I found myself nodding to repeatedly:

 

No, the Start menu first appeared in Windows 95. Before that you dealt with Program Manager, which the Windows 8 Start screen struck many long time users as a zippier version of the same thing. Except that PROGMAN.EXE understood sub-directories, a feature sorely lacking in the Start screen.

 

The Start menu in Win95 was a major improvement in that it better suited a real multi-tasking environment. The Win8 Start screen made sense for touch users but was a real slap in the face for desktop users. They put out the Previews and got tremendous negative feedback and ignored it.

 

A more sensible approached would have been to delay Windows 8 for the PC market, release it Windows RT, work on making the UI more accessible for desktop users, then debut Windows 8 on the Surface Pro. Meanwhile, Windows 7 could receive another Service Pack and Windows 8 could finally be launched for desktop and laptop systems when it was truly ready. If they had accepted early on that the new UI was going to be widely rejected by existing users, they would easily have had time to produce a 'proper' version of Windows 8 in 2013. By giving Windows 7 another year in the market they could have saved themselves a lot of scorn and lost sales.

 

Any time you put out a preview of a new product and the reaction is intensely negative but your boss says, "They'll come around," you may want to make sure your resume is up to date.

 

 

--JorgeA

 

 

EDIT: Couldn't resist including this comment:

 

Good riddance, and it took only 3 years after the first public preview sent parts of the user base for the Torches & Pitchforks aisle of their local Home Depot.

Edited July 6, 2014 by JorgeA

[NoelC]

Recognition that the past regime were so wrong doesn't necessarily make the next steps right.

 

What if all the really smart people got so disgusted with their company in these past recent years that they bailed out and went to work for someone who appreciates doing things right?

 

Who's that leave left in place now, then?  Folks who couldn't do any better than the Windows we see in front of us?

 

You can scram a reactor (shut it down) in short order.  It might take time and a great deal of care to get critical mass to start it up again without a meltdown.

 

-Noel

[jaclaz]

Recognition that the past regime were so wrong doesn't necessarily make the next steps right.

 

Surely not (or not necessarily), but still it is a sign of progress, once the good MS guys (and their shills) will have completely reached the acceptance stage, they will be able to do something - if not better - different or "new".

 

After almost three years insisting on beating this poor dead horse it will be anyway a change.

Whether it will be a change for the better time will tell, but at least there is the possibility - pardon me the pun - of a new start (menu) .

 

 

jaclaz 

[JorgeA]

Did you ever think you'd see a headline like this? 

 

Windows 8.x goes into reverse gear -- loses market share as both Windows 7 and XP show growth

 

The least surprising bit of news is that the share of Windows 7 went up. More remarkable is that XP (the Rasputin of operating systems) also went up despite all the efforts to kill it.

 

Most pleasing to me personally was to learn that Vista's share, too, went up (from 2.9% to 2.95%). 

 

   

Desktop OS Market Share, May 2014 and June 2014 [source]

 

Looks like customers will go with anything but Windows 8.

 

--JorgeA

 

[jaclaz]

 

Most pleasing to me personally was to learn that Vista's share, too, went up (from 2.9% to 2.95%). 

Yeah, sure , from "insignificant" all the way up to "irrelevant" is a clear (though a tadbit late, I may say) success of this often unjustly neglected OS. 

 

Back to topic, i.e. the given link:

http://betanews.com/2014/07/01/windows-8-x-goes-into-reverse-gear-loses-market-share-as-both-windows-7-and-xp-show-growth/

Windows XP went from 25.27 percent in May to 25.31 percent in June, for a 0.04 percent gain. Yes, it’s a minuscule amount, but again even so. This is a 13 year old discontinued operating system -- folks should be jumping from it like rats leaving a sinking ship, but despite the huge unmissable Windows 8.x lifeboats everywhere, users would appear to be happier to take their chances than leap aboard the new OS, which is crazy.

 

I will need some opinion from mother tongue English speaking people to understand if the "which is crazy" is referred to the decision of not jumping on the (also sinking BTW) "new OS" or to the "new OS" itself.

 

 

jaclaz

Edited July 6, 2014 by jaclaz

[JorgeA]

 

Back to topic, i.e. the given link:

http://betanews.com/2014/07/01/windows-8-x-goes-into-reverse-gear-loses-market-share-as-both-windows-7-and-xp-show-growth/

Windows XP went from 25.27 percent in May to 25.31 percent in June, for a 0.04 percent gain. Yes, it’s a minuscule amount, but again even so. This is a 13 year old discontinued operating system -- folks should be jumping from it like rats leaving a sinking ship, but despite the huge unmissable Windows 8.x lifeboats everywhere, users would appear to be happier to take their chances than leap aboard the new OS, which is crazy.

 

I will need some opinion from mother tongue English speaking people to understand if the "which is crazy" is referred to the decision of not jumping on the (also sinking BTW) "new OS" or to the "new OS" itself.

 

 

jaclaz

 

 

I'm not exactly a "mother tongue" English speaker , but the (unclear) way that that was written it could indeed be taken either way. I took it to mean that the whole situation where a new OS is losing out to an old OS and even to one that's EOS, is just amazing.

 

 

 

 

Most pleasing to me personally was to learn that Vista's share, too, went up (from 2.9% to 2.95%).

Yeah, sure , from "insignificant" all the way up to "irrelevant" is a clear (though a tadbit late, I may say) success of this often unjustly neglected OS.

 

 

Hahaha!

 

Just for the record, Vista's   insignificant/irrelevant market share is still twice that of Linux, the most self-important OS in the history of the universe.

 

--JorgeA

[NoelC]

Did you ever think you'd see a headline like this? 

 

Yes, absolutely, since minutes after I downloaded the first Windows 8 developer preview back in 2011.

 

-Noel

[jaclaz]

 

 

Hahaha! 

 

Just for the record, Vista's   insignificant/irrelevant market share is still twice that of Linux, the most self-important OS in the history of the universe.

 

Well, to be fair, the netmarket share monitors OS's that are used to browse the Internet, it is entirely possibly that there are vast numbers of installed OS's NOT used to browse the 'net, so almost *anything* that is used on Servers is not (including all "Server Editions of Windows and a large number of Linux installs) and as well a vast number of "non-browsing" installed OS's are possible and are not in any way part of the "survey":

http://www.netmarketshare.com/faq.aspx#Methodology

So, speaking of Linux as "self-important OS", we will need to fork between "Desktop Linux uses" and "Non-Desktop Linux uses".

 

By the same token, for all we know it is possible that Server 2012 R2, possibly in the "Server core edition" (please read with the good things, but without the N.C.I. ) is selling fine.

 

jaclaz

[NoelC]

... which is crazy.

 

 

I will need some opinion from mother tongue English speaking people to understand if the "which is crazy" is referred to the decision of not jumping on the (also sinking BTW) "new OS" or to the "new OS" itself.

 

 

Seems to me they're referring to the increase in XP's market share, much like saying "these are crazy times".

 

-Noel

[jaclaz]

Strangely something On Topic:

http://betanews.com/2014/07/10/windows-8-xs-failure-will-be-the-making-of-windows-9/

Though I concur with the fact that the letter by Satya Nadella:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/ceo/index.html

"is intended as a rallying cry but lacks anything close to substance", I find it containing a "strong statement" about the world we live in (possibly Redmond - or Seattle - or the State of Washington is a tadbit different):

We live in a mobile-first and cloud-first world. Computing is ubiquitous and experiences span devices and exhibit ambient intelligence. Billions of sensors, screens and devices – in conference rooms, living rooms, cities, cars, phones, PCs – are forming a vast network and streams of data that simply disappear into the background of our lives. This computing power will digitize nearly everything around us and will derive insights from all of the data being generated by interactions among people and between people and machines. We are moving from a world where computing power was scarce to a place where it now is almost limitless, and where the true scarce commodity is increasingly human attention.

 

and also a "strong statement" on the intentions of the MS guys:

We will create more natural human-computing interfaces that empower all individuals. We will develop and deploy secure platforms and infrastructure that enable all industries. And we will strike the right balance between using data to create intelligent, personal experiences, while maintaining security and privacy. By doing all of this, we will have the broadest impact.

 

judging on the experience on how they lately accomplished their goal of a "more natural human-computing interfaces" and how they(according to the German and Chinese governments) succeeded at "maintaining security and privacy", it will be interesting to see if the actual new OS will go anywhere near fulfilling these promises.

 

jaclaz

[NoelC]

Mission statements...  Meh.  From my experience, usually that means the organization is incapable, so they feel they have to talk the talk.  Think Dilbert.

 

There's been altogether too much blah blah blah BS and WAY too little actual engineering lately.

 

-Noel