Windows 9 Technical Preview screenshots leaked

LOL...

Tablets and smartphones aren't good for doing real work (and I know you know that). They're toys and good for selfies and texting... That's like saying that automobile controls are soooo old.

 

Depends on how you define real work. I used my T100 to work with LabVIEW. Needs a bigger screen though, but since it has a micro HDMI port, that's possible.

 

Wait, people want to work on computers?

I remember what Microsoft thinks "work" is... anyone remember the paperclip?
He should be the ultimate video game boss.
That guy was all but unkillable... even when you uninstalled.

"It looks like you are trying to pull all your hair out."
"Here are some suggestions!"

"It looks like you are trying to actually get some work done."
We can't have that. Here are some suggestions!"
(I know you think you got rid of me, but I thought you needed help.)

"It looks like you are trying to get rid of me."
"Would you like to play a game of chess?"
"Maybe minecraft?"

 

Don't. Touch. The. Friggin'. PAPERCLIP!
Do you want to be in a world of hurt?
That thing was awesome! Always asked me if I wanted to initiate a genocide while writing a research on brownies. Good times.
It was deleted in Office 2003, so I used to always install Office 2000 first and then 2003 just to get that thing .

 

Actually they did...when Corporations and Institutions went to Enterprise Windows 7 SP1 that was the writing on the wall for Windows 8

That is so true..most forgot that during Debacle 8 they were quietly and slowly transitioning to Windows 7 Enterprise.

 

Agreed 1001%

It most certainly isn't just you...and the fact that there's a ton of older and/or proprietary software that does not play nice with W8 of any kind is something that is not mentioned often enough IMO, but is a *real* deal breaker for many individuals as well as corporations...

 

Yeah a lot of my old games on disc and GOG titles have problems (incessant crashing, low FPS, etc.) or just flat-out don't work on Windows 8. It's a nightmare.

 

Which is the opposite speech we got in the late 90's/early 2000s when Microsoft was trying to please everyone by bolting on all kinds of options and checkboxes and 12 different ways to do things. It led to terms like "feature creep" and Windows being considered bloated and it has too much and users are confused blahblah. So they make an effort to get those checkboxes and options reduced, and at the same time create a more 'consistent' experience, given the nature of computers in 2014, how they are basically everywhere and we have work laptops and home desktops and grandma's computer and whatever, and now Win8 improves the chances you're not going to sit at Windows here and Windows there and it's the same version but nothing is the same.

As I showed before, this is hardly some Microsoft unique direction. Apple has never been about choice to the user, and even everyone's fan favorite open source darling Linux, well, Canonical and other entities have been dumbing desktop Linux down for years. Heck, Gnome 3 even went as far as to say "well the user doesn't need to personalize the desktop too much, so let's just break right click menus where all the personalization stuff was."

If all we're doing is complaining about the lack of a theme, well, I dunno what to tell you. Do what you feel you need to do. Don't try to make other people do what you feel you need to do.

 

No one is, the consumers as a whole have made their choices. We as a generalized group are trying to express the directions needed to be taken to get the consumers back. You, and others, may think Windows 8 is the right direction but the track records to date PROVE otherwise. Please do not think this is just about a theme, unless you are talking in the broader sense of metro and Windows 8 as the theme etc..

No one wants to see Windows 9 or further versions fail, heck no one here wanted Windows 8 to fail to my knowledge. Back in the beta days we were all very hopeful. We have even been hopeful through all the incarnations of 8.x with the lofty statements from the company that they were listening and would get it right this time. So in the end, to all you Windows 8 proponents, I do not know what to tell you other than "Listen to what your existing consumer base is saying"! You do not have to listen to me or even anyone else here for that matter.

 

And once they enter the workforce they will most likely understand that the real world computing requires a different type of interface...

 

I'd have to disagree. All my old games which worked on XP work fine on 7, but a lot of them don't play nice with 8, plus 7 Pro has XP Mode. For example, my disc copy of Unreal Gold, which installs without issue but crashes within a few minutes every time I try to play. And just because a game on GOG is listed as supporting Windows 8 doesn't mean it actually works. Take Empire Earth Gold for instance, which never goes above 30 FPS (usually ~20 FPS) and causes severe mouse and camera lag. It's got no frame rate issues in Windows 7 and earlier.

 

So much of this.

Company upgraded from XP to Win 7 about a year ago, and the few IT guys I talked to said they'll do their dammed hardest to make sure Windows 8 never gets deployed on company computers.

 

I think I'm with Indrek on this one. Whereas Start screen might not be the best thing ever, but how often does one use Start menu/screen while working? I doubt that anyone gets paid to stare at Start menu/screen. You turn your PC on, launch things you need, and if the need to launch something different comes up, you just revisit Start menu/screen again. Heck, even secretaries figured out by now how to pin Outlook to tray. People are making a big deal out of nothing.

However, what I don't like is that MS removed a few features. Maybe they weren't used an awful lot, but they were there for a reason, i.e. the feature Wingnut mentioned to change OS fonts.

 

Not quite, for a slew of reasons...one of them being the fact that by the time these kids get to any sort of decision-making positions, W8.x will be dead and buried, and likely fast forgotten...

Let's not forget that there are major players who decided to pay M$ a ton of $$$$ for extended XP support...

I don't know how things are in your neck of the woods, but I have yet to enter any type of a serious business establishment that runs W8.x in any shape or form...be it a bank, hospital, radio station, law firm...you name it.

 

The post-IPO company I work for has an entire department on Windows 8.1. I even added it to our imaging system, which was pretty painless.

 

Not the case in the Fortune 20 Company with roughly 200K employees that issues my paycheck. W7 or bust. But I never stated that "no one" adopted W8.x and hence the disclaimer from my previous post:

 

I have a feeling you do not personally know the operating system running on every single computer in the organization.

 

As for the whole workforce issue, i think it depends on if you're running the entire group on one OS or a combination. Case in point, my entire office except 1 new hire is on win7, the new hire is on win8. It's been a nightmare scenario for a number of different reasons, but mostly training. It may seem small and silly, but the differences in how to do things (even shutting down the computer) is quite real and very annoying.

 

When we started deploying laptops in addition to desktops, our IT company encouraged us to get Thinkpad X1 Carbons running Windows 8. However, since we had just upgraded the last of of our desktops to Win7 (part of a several-year upgrade process) on the eve of the XPocalypse, we tracked down Thinkpads still available with Win7 (T440) to maintain consistency. The decision was made first and foremost based on the need for a consistent OS. It wasn't made on differing user interfaces (we have to train our employees either way; you can't assume any preexisting computer knowledge in the legal profession) and it certainly wasn't made on aesthetic preferences (aero versus metro), which doesn't matter one iota either way from a money-making perspective.

At this point, I don't think Win8 will ever take off in our industry for the same reason Vista never did--regardless of whether or not you like its concept, it's too rough around the edges in its execution, even a couple years in. But from what I see of the Win9 tech preview, which appears to be a more refined, more mouse-friendly approach on the same theme, I certainly could envision our firm adopting it at the time of our next major OS upgrade. I certainly think Win9 is more likely than Ubuntu or OSX or something like that.

 

I'm a little confused by this statement: As far as I know, every single Thinkpad model that is sold is available with Windows 7. This was certainly the case for the X1 models. Well, last I checked, anyway, sometime this spring. More generally speaking, to my knowledge all OEMs offer Windows 7 on all of their business-class machines.

 

I remember having trouble finding Win7 options in Thinkpad's lineup at the time, though I see the X1 Carbon comes with Win7 when I go back to that page today.

We also went with the T440 because optical drives are still essential in the legal industry, even though they're considered dinosaur technology in many other industries.

 

They, with Windows 9 and beyond, seem to be giving back more and more features to see where the sweet spot for consumer adoption is. I can see why they are doing it this way as they have till 2020 to find that sweet spot. TBH that start button seems to be the big hang up for most consumers and this will most likely yield the highest consumer acceptance rate of any change to be implemented. Will it be enough on its own merit, that I can not say. Again I can only speak for myself and this alone will not get me there. If DWM were fixed and aero glass implemented, even as a hidden option, I would at least be on the fence.

Edit; as a side note I just rooted and did a custom ROM on my Nexus 10 to get translucent nav and side bars. Even there what a difference!

 

You are partially correct.

While I can't claim that there isn't a leftover machine still running XP somewhere - or even Vista although I've never seen one in any of the many offices I've visited - I most certainly CAN claim that there's not a single unit running W8 of any kind, and here's why:

There's a particular piece of software - both ancient and proprietary - that every PC owned by the company is *absolutely required* to have installed. The aforementioned piece of software doesn't play nice with W8 - or vice versa - and we've been told in no uncertain terms that for that reason alone we'll *never* see W8 deployed.

Not to mention that there are several other - slightly less critical - pieces of software that also don't run under W8.

So, while I don't know everything, I definitely know a lot more than you when it comes to my own workplace and the industry that has been providing me with a paycheck for the past 15 years.

 

The "shut down" thing again.

Alt-F4 at the desktop has brought up the shut down box since as far back as I can remember (at least Win95), but I digress...

Win8 did kind of over-assume that people won't power down, because well, tablets and laptops. But Win8.1 quickly put the power button right on the Start screen. And on win-x. And in the Settings charm. And Alt-F4. Or just push the power button on your computer.

A lot of the "explain how to do it" in Win8.1 is very similar, if not exact, to Win7. It just looks different.

"Press the Start button. Push the on/off icon. Shut down."

This process is *identical* with both operating systems. It just looks different.

 

Ah, now I think I remember, these options were not quite straightforward to find. It was something about having to choose a "Custom Configuration", or something along these lines.

 

Not good enough for me. When all is said and done, the above are partly cosmetic issues, and worst case I could go out and buy a Start Menu replacement (which will give me a Start Menu that will be head and shoulders above that weak shadow of a Start Menu that Windows 9 seems to concede to users) and StarDock's WindowBlinds, and I could have a decent-looking and fully functional UI.

On the other hand, there is no way, none at all, to fix the broken Search functionality in Windows 8.x, and I can't get persistent shadow copies back in any way, either. Both happen to be mission-critical for me, which means that any Windows version that does not have these is a non-starter. Given that I have next to no hope that Microsoft will bring these capabilities back, my assumption is that I will stay with Windows 7.

 

I will agree that not everyone will come over, also as you mention there is a lot more needed to get me off that fence. For the average Joe or Jane, well I would want to be able to help them so I might come off the fence to a dual boot.

 

Double post.

 

Windows 9 will be a failure because it isn't Windows 9, it is Windows 8.2.

 

7 isn't a failure even though it's Vista Service Pack 4.

 

There's some truth to this, however, the comparison with Windows 8 is deeply flawed. Vista was in fact a very decent OS, and its main issue was lousy driver support by some crucial OEMs (I'm looking at you, NVidia...) when it came out, plus prices for memory had just skyrocketed when it came out. As a consequence, PC OEMs would sell machines with minimal storage configurations (2GB was not uncommon) and/or marginal specs, and Vista didn't play well with those. I had used Vista myself pretty much from the start until Windows 7 came out, and it was just fine, but that was on top-end machines.

Windows 8.x, on the other hand, is hated because of its atrocious UI, and crippled functionality. That's an entirely different story. Yes, some people did prefer the XP UI when Vista came out, but again, different from Windows 8, Vista allowed you to revert your UI back to something that closely matched XP, not mentioning the fact that other than eye candy, the two UIs were very similar to start with.

 

I'm hoping Win 9 has a desktop friendly UI. I'm currently still using a Vista laptop and would like to get a new one but I just can't stand the Win 8 UI. Sure I can install programs that make it more like 7 but what happens if/when support for those programs end? Honestly if this one is a dud also, I'll just keep my old laptop for work stuff and buy a PS4 for games. I'll be done giving MS money if they will not supply what I want. I've already gone Android for phones and am very happy with it.

 

OK, let's start with

Market Share for operating systems (Aug 1, 2014)
Source: Windows XP Below 25% Market Share, Windows 8.1 Falls
Linux 1.68%
Mac OS 6.64%
Win 8.1 6.56%
Win 8 5.92%
Win 7 51.22%
Win Vista 3.05%
Win XP 24.82%
Older Windows 0.10%

Despite 2 years of availability, Windows 8 makes up only 12.48% of installed operating systems.
Windows XP has almost TWICE that amount. Win 7 has over 4 times that!

The public has spoken. Many of my business client actually pay us to downgrade any and all workstations and laptops with Win8 installations.
Why? Because legacy software written for Win7 doesn't work on Windows 8. (Almost two years after release.)
No, this is not entirely Microsoft's fault... but businesses don't care whose fault it is. It just doesn't work.

Window 7 works... pretty much every time. I haven't found a single game, program or application from windows 3.1 and forward which cannot be made to function with a little elbow grease and knowledge or maybe resorting to XP mode. (extremely few actually require this) They work completely and even rickshaw teaching applications, old law databases, and even ancient medical billing software written for windows 3.1 at 640x480 can be forced to work by invoking the correct settings. Very few are limited in what they can do and all work as pretty much any user can operate by simply double-clicking.

I have a running laundry list of applications (In Win 8's defense many are custom databases which run locally) which simply do not work in Windows 8 even with an engineer from the software company which made it AND a Microsoft engineer on the line. (I explained to the customer that this was a waste of money, but they insisted.) For the ones which do work... they don't work completely right or you have a list of workarounds that make even the most advanced engineer pull out their hair. A good portion of the applications which won't work were designed for Windows 7. Every single time the easiest and best solution has been to downgrade to Windows 7. It then works flawlessly and with very little effort.

I understand the march of technology very well. I do not expect Windows 3.1 programs to work on Windows 8. I DO expect the previous generation Win 7 software to work on Windows 8 as no one could reasonably expect businesses to buy complete software upgrades on every program they use. Every other version of Windows has supported a reasonable amount of legacy software. This is especially true from the previous version of Windows to encourage upgrades.

At this point... the interface is an annoyance that most of us will just change with registry hacks and 3rd-party programs. The list of programs which simply will never work is a show-stopper.

I hope Microsoft listens about both points.

 

Whereas it's really simple for you or me, or anyone else on this forum, the sad reality is, not a lot of people know and/or bother to remember these combinations.
I've seen professors with lots of fancy degrees who struggle to rotate a .pdf in Reader, the same one they created themselves... You just can't expect people to learn and use this stuff.

 

Our Win8.1 group are a bunch of hardware engineers. They "learned and use this stuff." They also have fancy degrees.

 

I feel sorry for them... that's like forcing the IT department to use Microsoft Bob. You really must not like them as most people of that nature would consider forcing them to use win8 pretty close to forcing them to wear "protective headgear" so they don't hurt themselves while thinking.

I have actually considered using Win8 as a punishment or "penalty box" hidden behind the words "upgrade".
I decided that would be too cruel.

 

Well, at least someone know how to use their fancy degrees...

 

Why not upgrade to win 7?

 

I see no reason to. I work on Win 7 all day at work and theres not much different with the Vista on my old laptop. If it was free, sure but its not.

 

Upgrading from Vista to 9 might not be easy even if you do like it.

Most likely, Microsoft will try to make upgrading from their most recent operating systems and especially windows 7, which people overwhelmingly chose over 8, very easy.
They likely will not support Vista->Win9 upgrades.
(nothing official of course yet)

Of course, full reinstalls are recommended if you have the time and knowledge to do so. So it may not matter either way to you.

 

I would not upgrade from Vista, I would purchase a new laptop.

 

If Windows 9 won't let me get rid of the Metro abomination once and for all, I'd consider it an inferior desktop OS to both 7 and Vista. Especially since all Metro does is consume VRAM and hurt performance.

 

Sure, ideally we'd be able to completely remove the WinRT subsystems, meaning we'd go back to the Windows 7 base with a Windows 8 kernel. The chances of that happening, however, are as close to zero as it gets. Unfortunately.

 

This would've been a bigger success than what Windows 8 turned out to be.

 

I think there still would be the software compatibility issues. The kernel and new task scheduler, along with drivers too, would still cause headaches for certain programs. As far as the UI, if they went back to the beta, pre-rtm, and then also placed the metro enhancements they have now then we would have a winner.

That is the sad thing, Win8 could have been a winner right from the get go. Now we have to deal with them slowly giving back features to the UI trying to make it acceptable while still preserving their vision. They are not listening to us, they are handing out crumbs waiting for the grumbling to somewhat subside. They will still let us grumble, so long as we buy into their vision.

While I really still want to help fellow friends and users of computers if by 2020 Adobe LR and Canon support Linux it may just be time to jump the fence altogether. It would really be great to get off this rollercoaster.

 

Windows 7 to Windows 9 Direct Upgrades Tested by Microsoft – Report - Softpedia

 

Window 8 vs 8.1 good for mobile and tablet. Now, we have window 9 just for desktop

 

Microsoft is playing its cards poorly in my opinion, no one wants windows for this - we want the start button back, the current start menu in 8.1 doesn't work for PCs.

Maybe they need to have two versions, one for customers and one for advanced customers who want productivity and not this ugly thing.

 

It is actually funny as I know of a few people that at even free would not upgrade from Windows 7. These are casual/professional users that never refuse anything free.

 

Needs more transparency...