

Windows 8 launch date announced: October 26th - dnyanesh
http://www.redmondtimes.com/2012/07/18/windows-8-launch-date-announced-october-26th.aspx

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outside1234
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm looking forward to the Surface
launch. It looks like almost exactly what I'd love to have in a tablet.

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Rickasaurus
Me too, I think the x86 Surface is going to be to me what the dust covered
iPad on my shelf never was. However, I'm feeling that Windows 8 on the desktop
is going to be a disaster. There's just no benefit to a tablet/phone UI on my
desktop.

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tjoff
And that is why noone will use Metro on their desktop for real work.

For a workstation the Windows 7 to Windows 8 transition will be much smaller
than the Vista to Windows 7 transition, so I have a hard time understanding
how it could be a disaster...

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smithian
I was of the same opinion before I tried 8, but after a week of use it's
actually far easier and better from my perspective. I do not miss the start
menu, the start screen is better in almost all ways. it does take some getting
used to though. (Oops, I suppose this will be rated as fake by Toshio,
downthread, who thinks he can detect fake sentiment in online postings. Guess
I'd better report to the corporate overlords for my chip implant.)

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xmmx
How do you deal with the unintuitive gestures? Sliding on a random side of the
screen to bring up a random menu?

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dpark
The edge swipe behavior is new, and a pretty big change, but it's consistent.
I didn't find that it took that long to get used to. It took longer to get
used to the missing Start button. There's a lot of muscle memory there, so
I've opened IE (first icon on my taskbar) on accident a number of times.

Disclaimer: MSFT employee

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freehunter
The IE logo does look at first glance to be the start orb thing. I hit that
all the time trying to get to the start corner when my second monitor is to
the left of my main monitor.

All the enhancements for multi-monitor support, yet they still didn't
anticipate having a monitor to the left of your main...

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elbeanio
Massive amount of effort to unify the interface between platforms, simplify
choice for the user, and move towards a consistent Microsoft vision and they
still insist on putting out a "Pro" version.

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oraj
I had an interview in Microsoft's local office a couple of months ago and as
long as I can tell, they are a company that believes it can increase sales of
Office physical boxes, you know the ones with DVDs in them. Of course not all
of the company is not like that but they just can't seem to get over the
fragmented mentality in the company.

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Derbasti
I am actually looking forward to this. I have been using the Windows 8 Release
Preview for the last few weeks and I quite like it.

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Avitas
I guarantee that, shortly after the launch date, many tech media outlets will
announce:

"XX million copies of Windows 8 shipped."

"Windows 8 sets record for [carefully worded phrase relating to sales volume]"

...et cetera.

Essentially, Microsoft will make a concerted effort to assure potential
customers that Windows 8 is something that is being accepted. I guess that's
no big surprise.

Will Windows 8 add significant or measurable value to the user currently using
Windows 7, Vista or XP? I would argue that the value added for the vast
majority of users will not exceed the paltry $40 upgrade cost.

In 10 years, will Windows 8 be viewed as another Windows ME or Windows Vista
(i.e., minor updates that were largely viewed as worse than their
predecessors)? I don't know, but my initial guess is 'yes.'

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melling
Hopefully a few hundred million XP users will upgrade. For me, it's all about
Internet Explorer. If Win8 does well, IE10 will be the new minimum for html5,
and it's a lot better than the previous IE's.

<http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html>

Most non-corporate Win7 users should get the IE10 update too. In a year IE8
usage will be in the single digits.

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fbeans
"IE10 will be the new minimum for html5" I'm not sure what this means, but it
sounds horrible, I understand IE is getting better, but it did the damage in
the early years, and it burnt its bridges with so many users and developers. I
cannot see this changing while MS still execute "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".

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freehunter
What that statement is saying is that the author believes the stable fallback
on HTML5 means it will only need to degrade to the point that IE10 will render
it.

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EwanG
I don't know... given the proximity to Halloween I'd be more than a little
worried at the week one stories likely to come out - particularly if there are
ANY bugs.

Some reason that an earlier date in October wouldn't have worked as well given
that the master is going out in about a month anyway?

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freehunter
I don't understand how a minor holiday has any bearing on how well a software
release will be received?

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twodayslate
Is this going to be on MSDNAA like Windows 7 was? Or what is the cheapest/best
way to get the Pro version for significantly less than retail?

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freehunter
Buy the upgrade for $40. No word on if it will be on AA or Technet, but odds
are it will be when it RTMs in August.

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bitwize
Two days before Bill Gates's birthday! Will he be cutting a trapezoidal-
window-shaped cake this year?

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stevewillows
Is this a Back to the Future reference?

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Toshio
I'm in the process of building software to detect fake positive sentiment
related to tech products. There are a few comments in this section right here
that are carefully worded but the software flagged them as fake anyway. It's
the type of comment that begins with "I was skeptical at first, but windows 8
won me over in the end" (haha).

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freehunter
I was skeptical at first, but Toshio's false sentiment software won me over in
the end.

