
Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista - Dall0oo
http://www.kitguru.net/software/operating-systems/benjamin/windows-8-proving-less-popular-than-vista/
======
EwanG
My personal favorite Windows 8 feature - plug in a mouse, but not a keyboard.
Go to a text field. Windows 8 figures that if you have a mouse you "must" have
a keyboard even though it can plainly see you don't. So the on-screen keyboard
doesn't come up. Even if you load it in the desktop pane, it won't be
available in other panes (like the Store).

The solution is to unplug the mouse, and then the keyboard shows up. The level
of "broken" this represents in not thoroughly thinking through the change in
their UI probably explains the level of resistance to the product. I still run
it on all my machines because most of what I do I can do inside the Desktop
pane (even on my Win 8 tablet). I can only imagine how painful life would be
to an RT user...

~~~
therobot24
RT user checking in - as long as remote desktop works i'm good (though i'm
connecting to a win 8 pc).

Why did i buy a 499$ remote desktop machine? Cause i don't need to carry
computing power with me, and the snap in keyboard + usb port (charge my
phone/plug in a mouse) + expandable memory is exactly what i need.

~~~
gambiting
You can do EXACTLY same thing with an Asus Transformer, which is cheaper, and
works just as well. It even supports multitouch gestures when connected
remotely to your Win8 PC.

~~~
kenjackson
Really, the ASUS with Android runs RDP as well as Win8? I find that hard to
believe.

~~~
wvenable
Why wouldn't it? About a 2 dozen RDP clients exists for both Android and iOS.

~~~
therobot24
most require a desktop client to be installed on the other machine - in
instances where you have only user permissions on the other machine (work)
this becomes troublesome.

~~~
wvenable
I'm not talking about software that needs a server (like VNC); I'm literally
talking about clients that talk the Microsoft RDP protocol. There are plenty
to choose from for either platforms

Also if your work using something like Citrix; clients exist for both
platforms for that as well.

------
mtgx
Microsoft made a mistake trying to force a made-for-touch interface on PC
users, and in the end the strategy is not that different than forcing a PC
interface on a touch device. It may actually be worse, because at least in
that case you would be familiar with the interface, so at least it would have
that advantage.

I think this video explains most of the problems with Windows 8:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo>

~~~
neovive
Microsoft likely anticipated weaker demand for Win8 which is why they are
focusing their promotions on the consumer market at this point. Once they work
out the issues they will repackage a new version for enterprises running Win7.

Microsoft knows that the consumer desktop market is dwindling and that
competing with Apple and Samsung in the consumer mobile space isn't viable at
this point. However, the enterprise desktop market isn't going anywhere at
this point and leveraging their enterprise desktop dominance as a way into
mobile enterprise devices is their best option. IT managers will prefer an
end-to-end Win9 solution for all desktops and mobile devices over managing
disparate architectures.

~~~
officemonkey
I know my IT guy would rather replace our BlackBerries with something designed
to work well with Outlook.

Using Good on the iPhone just does not cut it.

~~~
aioprisan
what exactly is there not working well with Outlook in the regular Mail client
on the iPhone?

~~~
officemonkey
For security reasons, we can not access our email without a VPN connection.

~~~
aioprisan
you can set traffic to go through VPN on your iPhone

~~~
officemonkey
I invite you to explain that to my IT office. They seldom listen to good
ideas.

------
joenathan
I think the problem that exist is that computers have reached the level of
being good enough to not replace or upgrade. If you had a PC with a Pentium 4
and 256 or 512 MB of RAM you would be in serious pain trying to run a modern
web browser or do much of anything, but a Core2Duo with 4GB of RAM is more
than enough for 90% of people out there. There is no longer a compelling
reason to upgrade when your computer is no longer a major pain point and is
good enough, compounded with the fact that the world economy is in the trash
can and people are holding on to more dollars[1].

[1][http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-01/business/35501...](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-01/business/35501635_1_stock-
market-savings-rate-interest-rates)

~~~
dchest
Windows 7, released in 2009, was a success compared to Vista, and our
computers are not that much different inside from what they were then.

~~~
joenathan
Windows Vista is a special case, it took a lot of flack that Windows 7 would
have taken if Vista had not came before it.

Windows Vista broke compatibility(for the better of security) by making it so
applications could only write to the User lever directories and would need
elevated permissions to make system wide changes, Windows Vista also brought
the first major x64 push from Microsoft, which left people with many
peripherals that wouldn't work because there weren't 64 bit drivers available.
In the time from Vista to 7 applications where updated to follow proper
programming guidelines and 64 bit drivers where released, Vista in essence
took the blow so Windows 7 could be a success.

In my opinion Windows Vista also has some serious performance issues, for
example its caching was way too aggressive and would eat up all available RAM
and leave little to none for running programs(I got out of memory errors in
Photoshop while Vista had 700+MB of RAM "cached").

~~~
jiggy2011
True, I never quite understood why people seem to hate Vista but love 7.

I have a laptop with Vista (and a recent SP) and 7 on my desktop. Besides a
few UI differences I find it hard to tell them apart at all.

Most of the changes between XP and Vista that I disliked on Vista seem to have
persisted unchanged in 7. I find network configuration much more confusing on
Vista and 7 than on XP for example.

Perhaps earlier versions of Vista did have issues with memory management but
as far as I can tell they have been improved by recent service packs.

~~~
jstalin
Vista nearly ground several of our offices to a halt when we began a rollout.
It was a complete disaster. Windows 7 just works. Vista didn't.

~~~
jiggy2011
What specifically was the problems?

------
kabdib
MS should seriously consider releasing a patch that makes Win8 look like Win7
on desktops (shouldn't be very hard). Win8 has a fair number of improvements
under the hood.

My guess is that someone in the Windows org has this working.

(I won't get into the quality of the Win8 UI, since I have not used it yet.
Maybe it's the bee's knees and I'm just believing all the anti-hype).

~~~
marcosdumay
> shouldn't be very hard

Somebody already published one in SourceForge. I realy doubt MS can't do that.

But then, MS's strategy is to risk their PC dominance to make inroads at
portables. Such a patch would antagonize their (failing) marketing efforts.

~~~
w1ntermute
<http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/>

And another, proprietary option: <http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/>

------
RyanZAG
Microsoft have two main customers: OEMs that install Windows on their laptops
and desktops, and enterprise who use the easy collaboration between Office and
Windows Server based products to administer their businesses.

They are actively moving against one of their main customers (OEMs) by trying
to directly compete with them on hardware. This is a business 101 blunder that
comes from not understand what you are selling and why you are selling it.

Microsoft is losing the second main customer through deprecation of old assets
(VB6 compatibility issues, etc), and by drastically changing their product so
that expensive training and orientation is needed to transition users. In
addition, the new OS does not even improve workflow for the main Windows user:
an office drone updating Excel worksheets and using Outlook email. Microsoft
is also losing their handle on the developer mindset as larger numbers of
developers transition to Web/iOS/Android platforms for bread-and-butter
applications.

This is a now classic case of a business losing track of their target market,
and they will suffer deeply if they don't make rapid and enormous culture and
product changes within the next 2-3 years.

~~~
ctdonath
Seems they're making Kodak's mistake: thinking bulk-buying resellers are the
customers.

------
simplyinfinity
I like how people comment on the UI of Win 8 when they clearly have not used
it.

The new Modern(ex Metro) UI is a big Start menu(now called start screen). You
go to it only when you login to your machine after restart, after a login from
sleep/hibernate/lock if you have left it on the desktop , it stays there.
Everything else is like or better than Win 7.

Also you only go to the start screen when you need to find or start an app.
Yes , for some users it would suck to see the Start Screen after booting,
would be nice if there was option to select which screen to show after boot.

Also , the Start Screen is very good tool for organizing Apps. You can create
columns of apps (not automatically though) by type , use case or whatever
order your heart desires. And i find the start screen better replacement of
the desktop for placing my icons ( i dislike cluttered desktops as i see it
more often than the Start Screen)

~~~
ct
If you close/open a lot of apps due to memory constraints then you have to
leave the desktop a lot and it's jarring. The start screen makes it slower to
launch apps when you have a lot of apps you frequently used due to scrolling.
I just want a fast way to launch apps.

~~~
simplyinfinity
You are right, that can be painful. One solution to this might be to just pin
your most frequent apps to the taskbar instead? (browsers/windows
explorer/photoshop/whatever you use ) :) p.s. you can move around the pinned
icons on the start screen, move the most frequent more to the left so you
don't have to scroll :)

------
jmspring
The problem I have with that chart and the article - Vista was unpopular and
didn't deliver on a lot of it was supposed to. So, people stayed on XP. When
Win7 came out, it was a solid rev from both XP and Vista. Thus, the strong
uptake in upgrading.

With Win8 - you have an install base that is already fairly content with Win7,
a new interface that gets mixed reviews in the trade press -- yet people who
use it find things they both like and dislike, and as others have stated
computers have been "good enough" for awhile.

I'm not sure if/how Win8 will play out, but corporate upgrade cycles and OEMs
will play heavily into that. That said, a number of formerly PC only corporate
environments are becoming more Apple friendly, which will also have an impact.

~~~
randomfool
Also Vista was long overdue by the time it came out and had quite a few
features beyond XP.

------
kmfrk
I'm having a worse experience with Windows 8, than I had with Windows 7. My
printer didn't work until a few days ago, when it started printing in the
middle of the night - discreet driver update? - and my installation was
suddenly deactivated, so now I get the most annoying activation prompt (which
fails) constantly. _Especially_ since it directs me to the tablet OS to do so.

It's also absurd, that it takes something like five seconds for a clicked link
in MetroTwit to open in my desktop browser.

------
xpose2000
I run window 8 and its a solid upgrade. It feels faster and has incremental
updates to various parts of the OS. (Native mounting of ISOs was a nice
surprise)

Only down side? The lack of start menu. But since that can be easily fixed
with Start8 (Google it), then there is no reason to not upgrade.

If you run windows 7, then stop wasting time and upgrade to 8.

~~~
archangel_one
I have Windows 7 on my desktop (for gaming, needless to say) and it works fine
- so I don't see why I should spend £25 on it (that's six pints of beer - or
12 if I want a physical disc) for a nebulous vague claim of "it feels faster"
and native ISO mounting that I'll never use (native ISO _ripping_ would be
mildly helpful, but it's still not that big a pain point). And no, I don't
want to arse about googling for 3rd-party apps to restore functionality that
worked fine in the old version.

My guess is this kind of sentiment explains the slow sales - Windows 7 is good
enough for almost everyone, and Microsoft don't have a great brand in this
area given Vista (and ME), and many underwhelming Office updates.

~~~
dillona
The security improvements alone are easily worth the money in my opinion.

~~~
gambiting
What kind of security improvements?

~~~
dillona
This slide deck (PDF) goes into far more detail than I could:
[https://media.blackhat.com/bh-
us-12/Briefings/M_Miller/BH_US...](https://media.blackhat.com/bh-
us-12/Briefings/M_Miller/BH_US_12_Miller_Exploit_Mitigation_Slides.pdf)

------
malbs
Bought a Samsung 840 Pro SSD drive just after xmas. I decided that given I was
going to do a fresh install of Windows, it may as well be Windows 8. Bought
upgrade for $39, downloaded iso, created a USB boot disk...

Thought I would format the drive before install, so booted up BartPE to
format/partition the SSD (single primary 100%, 1024 block size), then rebooted
to install Windows 8. Wouldn't activate due to it apparently not being an
upgrade on an existing installation (woops!). Turns out I just needed to
create a [N]:\Windows folder on one of the other disk drives before I
installed. Anyways, had to reinstall it again..

At first I suffered revulsion, I mean, 17 years of muscle memory moving mouse
to start button does not die easily. I was almost tempted to wipe it and re-
install Windows 7.

As I have started modifying/customising the o/s, I'm beginning to like it
more. I vaguely remember hating Windows 7 when I first upgraded from XP (I
never bought vista)

Ctrl+Esc serves as a nice way to swap between metro/classic. It just sucks
that there was less integration between Metro and desktop apps - they could
have done something to make it more seamless surely?

Even though Windows 8 has only been out a couples of months, there are a fair
few patches necessary

~~~
illuminate
"Ctrl+Esc serves as a nice way to swap between metro/classic"

The Windows key does that as well.

------
douglasisshiny
I honestly don't understand much of the fuss regarding the removal of the
start menu (replaced by the start screen). For one, I spend 99% of my time on
the desktop (which is an app in the metro interface). This comes as no
surprise, considering that people didn't spend much time on the start menu.
Second, the start screen / metro is easier to use than the start menu. If an
app isn't pinned to the dock, I press the windows key and start typing the
name of the application. Then I press enter. The application starts.

The Start screen / metro stays out of the way. There are improvements that can
be made, sure, but it's not horrible. As a whole, Windows 8 provides better
performance. Plus the upgrade was cheap ($15 for me).

~~~
raintrees
I agree, having set up my first couple of systems for stand alone users and a
Server 2012 with Remote Desktop Services for a group of users.

As long as a keyboard is handy with the Windows Start key, no worries. Start
Menu? Windows Start. Charms sidebar? Windows C. All Programs menu? Windows Z.
Logout? Windows, click the login name, Log Out.

The zones for the mouse/touch for the Start Menu and Charms sidebar a too
sensitive, so I just show folks the Start key on the keyboard.

The hardest part now is removing all of the cruft systems integrators are
shoving into the Start Menu, especially if they are live-feed updated content
- Just like remoting into a system that has yahoo.com or msn.com as the home
page: I have to wait awhile before the UI is responsive again to a remote
user. Can't have those flash-based ads slack in performance, can we?

------
meaty
Yes this is obviously True at least for us. We've got one windows 8 user out
of 22,000 people and its one of our QA team on a surface.

Our app is productivity based and I don't think windows 8 is attractive to
this segment.

------
etanz
Does anyone else find it problematic that the data in the graph only reflects
Windows 8 usage until December 22nd? It could completely be missing out on the
post Christmas activations.

~~~
jere
Yes, it's absolutely silly. Here's a graph where X is always greater than Y,
except for one data point which hasn't been fully measured.

Therefore, Y > X? What the fuck.

------
moskie
Isn't part of the problem that the hardware market hasn't yet put out a good
selection of touchscreen devices (tablets, laptops, monitors) to take
advantage of Windows 8's core upgrades/features yet?

I was in Fry's Electronics last week, went to the laptop section, and couldn't
find any touchscreen Windows devices in their sea of laptops they had on
display. I had to ask a salesman, and he had to point out to me the one they
had on display.

I imagine that once touchscreen devices and monitors become the standard,
people will be more inclined to go with Windows 8, so I haven't written off
its success yet.

Or, I guess the pessimistic flip-side to that is that the market has spoken,
and there isn't a strong demand for such devices running Windows 8?

~~~
rcthompson
Why does my PC need a touch screen? I've never been using a desktop or laptop
computer and thought "If only this had a touch screen, my task would be so
much easier."

For that matter, same question with s/a touch screen/Windows 8/g. Seriously, I
haven't seen any commercial that tells me what Windows 8 will actually do for
me. Live tiles and "doodle passwords" are nifty, but I'm not going to drop
several hundred dollars for these.

~~~
andrewaylett
I've had a touch-screen laptop with Windows 8 for a couple of months now, and
I wish all my PCs had touch screens. Not that I'd use it for every
interaction, but sometimes it's just so much easier to swipe at the screen
than to use the mouse or the keyboard.

~~~
Bill_Dimm
I can't reach the monitor for my desktop computer without leaning forward. I
think a desktop with touch would be an ergonomic disaster.

------
dhughes
Windows 8 is and I supposed designed for tablets but not specifically for
tablets which is what I think is wrong, I'm sure everyone thinks that.

I'm curious to see how many people got tablets over the holidays and if
Windows 8 use increases some.

Windows 8 is so different than the previous versions of Windows it's quite
obvious people are out of their comfort zone. But I think it's good to see
some attempts at change and this change is not "just because" it's a valid
attempt at spurring sales because of the tablet craze.

I like Windows 8 but I am comfortable with computer and even I find it quite a
leap there's no way my elderly relatives could figure it out, they have
trouble even with Windows 7/Vista/XP.

~~~
danieldk
_I find it quite a leap there's no way my elderly relatives could figure it
out, they have trouble even with Windows 7/Vista/XP._

Metro is actually pretty simple on a touch device. I've seen iOS users
figuring out the interface in no time. I think Microsoft's real problem is
that for most people tablets are a different device category than laptops or
desktops, so the choice for Windows is not automatic. Evenmore, most people in
the market probably played with friends' or family's iPads and are more likely
to choose an iPad, or perhaps an Android device if they have an Android phone.

~~~
dhughes
Any relative of mine uses old hardware most of the time it's something I have
given away, I doubt anyone has any hardware newer than 2008, most of it is ten
years old.

Only recently my Aunt went from dial-up AOL to fiber Internet but her CRT
monitor is so fuzzy I can barely read it. She uses Word Perfect and barely
uses the 20GB hard drive she has.

She's the most tech knowledgeable of my relatives too she worked in a
government office for decades but even Win 7 would be confusing.

But she said may soon splurge and buy a new PC but by that time it will all be
Win8 so I am dreading that day, I read you can downgrade Win8 to be like Win7
I may look into that more.

------
wildc4rd11
A lot of organizations completed upgrading to win 7 (mostly from XP but some
from Vista) two or three years ago. From a business perspective, i don't see
why they would want to upgrade now given that win 7 does what they want and is
pretty stable/efficient. This also applies to regular people who get their job
done on win 7 and don't want to go through the hassle of upgrading. You could
argue, that win 8 is not sexy enough that it would push people to upgrade, but
I would say it's a timing issue combined with how win 7 is still going solid,
so I won't necessary blame Windows 8 for the low numbers.

------
ct
Win8 main problem is there's no killer must have app(s) that decimates similar
apps on other platforms. The Metro Mail app is almost a complete failure, and
the store is not user friendly for discovery of apps. If they can't get their
first tier apps to show what Win8 Metro can do, then what hope do third party
apps have?

And it seems like Win9 is still sticking with this failed UI paradigm:
[http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-9-Won-t-Bring-Back-
th...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-9-Won-t-Bring-Back-the-Start-
Button-to-Feature-an-Upgraded-Start-Screen-317072.shtml)

------
randomfool
Win8 actually does have some great functionality in WinRT and the new
application security model which has been sorely needed.

The problem is that these are all tied to the Metro interface. Once Microsoft
supports these in the classic desktop and stops pushing users into Metro then
it'll be a decent OS again.

~~~
raintrees
The latest trick is to use Task Scheduler to run Explorer.exe upon Login. This
bypasses the Metro screen as the starting point, going straight to the
Desktop.

------
xefer
Oddly (to me anyway) my youngest kids _love_ Windows 8. I'm not sure if it's
because they didn't have as much "invested" in the old desktop experience,
they just like the dancing colors, or if there is some generational thing I
don't quite grok.

------
JumpCrisscross
The January 2007 and September 2012 economic environments are vastly
different.

------
zemanel
that's just because shops don't usually hire children to show buyers how it
works.

