NoelC Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Windows 8 was a flop for these possible reasons: 1. Bold leadership, but completely misguided. Genuine misconstrual of what people need from a computer operating system, even in the face of being told by the public. 2. Complete loss of the technical prowess to create a viable operating system. The management replacement acknowledged problem number 1. But now we have Windows 8.2 - er, excuse me, Windows 10. No new substance, just more Window dressing changes for the worse. Nothing really but "re-branding" to distance it from Windows 8. What a POS! That they have chosen to push out MORE OF THE SAME BUT ACTUALLY WORSE as something exciting and new rather than saying, "look folks, we have to regroup, it'll be another year or two" just says that the replacement management is NO smarter, and also sadly proves axiom number 2 above. It's quite depressing if you think about it. The golden age of Windows computing has come and gone. -Noel 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osRe Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 What do you mean with point 2? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dencorso Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Maybe if they stopped thinking about "governance" and "empowerment" and concentrated on down-to-earth programming...But no, all they can think about is "mission", "vision" and other abstracts, alongside with some more cosmetic (for worse) changes...But, then again, it wasn't truly realistic to expect any swift surprising moves from an old stoned brontosaur like MS, was it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vinifera Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Noel you're not only one ... i simply fail to see bright future for this NT anymore 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoelC Posted October 6, 2014 Author Share Posted October 6, 2014 (edited) What do you mean with point 2? Do YOU see anything coming out of Microsoft that implies they still have the talent to develop serious new operating system features? Things that truly advance the state of the art in computing? It's been a long time since I have. Mostly what we're seeing is deletions and changes to the draperies. Changes to window dressing do not by themselves an operating system make. It'd be better if they'd just leave the UX alone, maybe polish it even more - and concentrate on building things into the system that would make it a ) easier to develop applications and b ) provide more usability. You could say the Metro/Modern application development environment is an attempt at that, but it's oriented to portable devices. People will NEVER create on portable devices. They will only consume. Without a system on which to create, guess how much gets created... -Noel Edited October 6, 2014 by NoelC 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoelC Posted October 6, 2014 Author Share Posted October 6, 2014 But, then again, it wasn't truly realistic to expect any swift surprising moves from an old stoned brontosaur like MS, was it? Well, frankly what we're seeing in the current development build from MS is pretty much what I'd expect of a company run like a gambler who won't stop making bad bets. They've been marching to the wrong orders. That's why it would be appropriate to release NOTHING until they get back on the straight and narrow. Who is it that has decreed that a company needs to release new software at short intervals? There is NO WAY to make big, concerted changes that make sense and really work that way. Instead you just get continuous mediocrity. -Noel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osRe Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 (edited) I don't like a lot of parts of Windows, but I can say the same about most software. It doesn't say much. There are thousands of MS people developing core OS features, many of which visible/used by users or developers. All these "window dressings" are a part of what nowadays is expected to come with an OS, even if we find many of them to be useless and a lot of the rest annoying. One of the main problems, I still think, is that the shell in Windows is sort of "holy", with no real 3rd party alternatives. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe because the stock is too ingrained, or not enough APIs exposed, or it's underdocumented. Or maybe it's just waiting for someone to do it. A popular 3rd party shell or two would both allow people be the masters of their GUI regardless of the specific whims of the OS version they use, and maybe let/drive Microsoft to focus more on core rather than GUI. all they can think about is "mission", "vision" and other abstractsThat corporatespeak is not new. And it's the same with all big companies, or small ones wanting to appear big. Edited October 6, 2014 by shae Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoelC Posted October 6, 2014 Author Share Posted October 6, 2014 (edited) Thing is, I actually *DO* like Windows. I've been a Windows aficionado since Windows began. I've built my business on the anticipation that Windows will have long and happy life and users will be running it for quite some time. It's the stuff Microsoft is doing lately that's both nearly meaningless and actually degrading the user experience that's depressing. With recent versions, how did deleting the Windows Backup UI help me? Making windows on the desktop harder to differentiate from one another by eliminating the drop shadow? The dumbing-down trend is not new, but it's reached a feverish pitch. Oversimplifying things so that we can't actually get the information we need (noting file dates such as "6 minutes ago" instead of "06:28:42", for example, which thankfully can be worked-around). And no, "window dressings" are not a necessary part of OS changes. That some marketing goon thinks they should be front and center, with all else in the background, precisely cuts to the core of the problem. If they're changed for the better they can be a welcome adjunct to the substantive features. If they're changed for the worse we have a lack of adoption. That doesn't help anyone. The hard to swallow part comes from stuff like this: Microsoft created the entire theming system and it was alive and healthy in Windows 7. How hard would it have been to give Windows 8 a fresh, new theme just based on that, while still offering (most of) the old ones as user choices. But noooo, we had to have that configurability taken away. Why? Answer that and you begin to understand my point of view. -Noel Edited October 6, 2014 by NoelC 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoelC Posted October 6, 2014 Author Share Posted October 6, 2014 By the way, as a graphic example of my point 2 with regard to user interface design... Note the Microsoft employee's response here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_365hp-word/word-365-scroll-bar-becomes-unresponsive-after/7275cc93-28bb-4292-bb57-63874edea1ef -Noel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Also, I would like to underline how there are good things in these newish releases of Vista . OS major version 6, minor 1, 2, 3 or 4 mean that these are all Vista flavours, in my simplicity . Curiously all the new, nice things are relegated to command line interface (and often with mindboggingly complex sintax). At this point it would be more intelligent to make the whole OS command line only (think of Server 2012 Core) create two similar "standard" GUI shells (one touch/swipe/tap enabled and one mouse/keyboard suitable one) and allow the use of specially crafted shells/GUI apps/ Themes making use of this underlying command line core. Not exactly a "new" concept, though. jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osRe Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 (edited) The window dressing/GUI is a large part of what the user perceives as "the OS", especially average users. It doesn't *have* to change, but there's a lot to improve, and there's no reason to stop at the XP standard. The question is where it should go. The answer is different for different people, so yes, hence the need for configurability or different shell options. Wasn't theming always a semi-hack because of the official need for signing? (I could be wrong, I never cared before Win8.) I don't know what's the idea behind forcing "a few moments ago" for date/times, but I think the solution is not to expect or demand this sort of control from Microsoft, but to move toward 3rd party shells where you'd have democratization and flexibility. What should be demanded from Microsoft is having a well-defined 3rd-party-shell API that would maintain good program/shell compatibility. BTW, I don't know how much stock you can put in what a Microsoft forum "Support Engineer" says. They never struck me as overly knowledgeable or useful. I've built my business on the anticipation that Windows will have long and happy life and users will be running it for quite some time.It's had a long life so far, and I don't think there's a large risk of OSX or Ubuntu taking over in the next 5 years. Edited October 6, 2014 by shae Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoelC Posted October 6, 2014 Author Share Posted October 6, 2014 BTW, I don't know how much stock you can put in what a Microsoft forum "Support Engineer" says. They never struck me as overly knowledgeable or useful. So where does that end? Note that it wasn't "Support Tech", the title actually has the term "Engineer" in it. That used to mean something. How many job positions can we now insert between those quotes? More than we could 5 years ago? THAT's my point. I'll also point out that this "Support Engineer" never even considered reporting the problem to anyone who might actually fix it. That probably would be frowned upon internally. And so the mediocrity mounts. Have they lost the critical mass of brain cells required to do the things they need to be doing? I'm thinking yes, and turning that culture around could be impossible... Jaclaz, all the versions of Windows Vista+ have had increasing requirements for tweaking in order to make them truly useful. It's still possible with Windows 8.1, and it's still possible with Windows 10 (which is really just 8.2) - though Microsoft seems to delight in closing off those avenues for some nefarious reasons. It's not whether there are a few gold nuggets, it's whether the whole thing hangs together. Noel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagicAndre1981 Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 those "Support Engineer" are outsourced employees who have no idea about anything. So ignore them 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 I guess we could make a list of "ignore priorities" . I would put Windows Out Reach as the ones to be most ignored or ignored more thoroughly: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/156549-hello-there/ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/jj129629.aspx though they are seemingly not outsourced. The answer is: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/162404-many-log-errors-on-install/?p=1034363 Why don't you use MDT and/or WDS or both instead of whatever you are using? Here is an useful resource: Alphabet Soup Deployment: Also check the Springboard Series page The good thing is that it applies to almost any question, or at least Jessica is specialized in this specific answer... jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drakenabarion Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 I am hoping that Windows 10 can be like the new 7. The technical preview isn't much more than a new start menu and theme (borderless feels odd in most situations, I need some border!). The advantages exist in the preview, like much faster boot times. But I just don't know what direction MS want to go. Office was a disaster, Windows 8, I make look like 7 where it counts. I was hoping for more out of steam os... But it will never have support for windows only games... Sent from my Nexus 4 running CM11 (KK 4.4.4) using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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