[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Windows 8's uptake falls behind Vista's pace here

[berock212]

Yeah im starting to think that windows 8 is going to be a failure. I still like it though but it kind of sucks that no one else does. I think it's because it's so radically different than any other operating system, most people don't like change. It seems that most people like it after they get used to it, but getting people to try windows 8 is the hard part.

[StevenSinofsky]

Fake data spewed by Apple fanboys.

[djjstew]

Only one word comes to mind: Arrogance. The whole Win8 "thing" on phones, tablets and pc's makes no sense. On the phone and tablet its a very nice os - very late to the game but very nice. Can it win back and get new customers? Is it really that nice? Time will tell but its going to be tough sledding through Ios and Android.

But on a pc its total arrogance to force us loyal users to make unnecessary changes so Win can be consistent across all platforms. And for what? A start "system" that has no real must have must see? Maybe that will improve over time as more developers come through with interesting and must have software. The silly thing is that the start screen disappears once a user goes to actual work on the desktop. Even with two screens the must have start window with the pretty tiles will not stay visible without some key strokes - at least I have not figured out how. I can see some potential here working on one screen in the desktop with the active tiles doing their thing on the other screen. My other annoyance is the need to take over a screen when using Win8 apps. I just don't get it.

Sorry, been a loyal Win user for over 20 years and this is actually worse than Vista. I have upgraded only because it cost me $15. But I dual boot and after a few weeks I boot into Win 7 now. Just no reason right now to boot into Win8.

[Hemo2]

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Only one word comes to mind: Arrogance.

This one word sums it all up. Myself and a great many others were thoroughly frustrated by Microsoft unwillingness to listen during all the developer preview, etc., even they they were "supposedly" interested in getting feedback.

The arrogance of a handful of managers at Microsoft is the cause of why Windows 8 can't even outsell the pathetic acceptance of Vista.

From enterprise acceptance to home use, the arrogance (and ignorance) of Microsoft with how they approached this product, their customers, and the feedback given doomed it from the start.

But what's worse is they simply won't acknowledge the reality of the sales or their customers and take corrective action. (So in a word, "arrogance" fits quite nicely to describe Microsoft and Windows 8.)

[cyberslammer]

The fail never felt so good in this one.

[Keinichn]

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I can see some potential here working on one screen in the desktop with the active tiles doing their thing on the other screen

Some of us actually use all of our screens for actual work. There is zero need for live tiles on a desktop (or even a laptop). A week after getting Windows 8 at work (I'm in tech support, so it got shoved to our laptops so we could get used to it), I installed Classic Shell and tried to forget that start screen even exists. I mean, I can type what I want and click it just like with the Start menu, but with an annoying full screen menu that pops up every time I press the Windows key.

I'm also not a fan of the default image and pdf programs being Metro apps. They take 3-4 times longer to open (on an SSD and fresh install) than opening the same PDF in Adobe Reader or the same image file in Paint, not to mention the fact it completely takes over the screen it opens on.

It's not a completely horrible operating system, but it's just so counter-intuitive to the power and business users. Everything you want to do doesn't work the same way and takes time and research to get it working like it did in every other iteration of Windows. 8 is casual friendly, but definitely not power user friendly.

[HOODY]

same here, I also bought the OS mainly because it was a good deal to go from 7 home premium to 8 pro with media center thrown in for free I couldn't pass it up. If it would have been like the usual at 100 or so I'd never have bothered.

As it is it reminds me more of 98 or XP than vista or 7.

I did manage to find a nice free start menu (start x) and I found the full MS games to re install, and even the gadgets (8gadgets) so all in all its pretty much back to business as usual, only thing missing is the ability to glass effect the task bar. But who knows some industrious 3d party coder will come up with that too.

Too bad MS had to do this, it turned a big deal upgrade into a sour note for most desktop and laptop users that don't use a touch screen or hand held device. I still like my 26" Sansung monitor I have connected to my laptop, I even use a usb mouse cause I'm not all that happy with the touch pad on the laptop.

But so far I have W8 under control, but only due to the efforts of 3rd party apps. Maybe in time MS will get its coders back in the room and come up with some SP to fix it all, only than will it be the OS it was supposed to be. Had MS only let people "choose" which GUI they wanted to go with it would have solved it all.

It took HP till a couple weeks ago just to post a graphics driver for my dv7t-6c00 with insane switchable graphics (7690m xt/Intel 300) for W8. Which will most likely be the one and only.

[MichaelPfeiffer]

Windows Vista had an incredible interface when I started using it and when you buy a top of the range laptop with Windows Vista, the performance is incredible. Of course the 10 year old XP system that I also have has maintained speed while Vista is slowing down. Therefore Vista was good for the first 3 years.....

Maybe Microsoft should have kept Windows 7 for desktops and laptops and made a "Windows Touch" or something like that.

I use Consumer Preview on an old Pentium desktop with 1GB of RAM and in desktop mode it runs so smoothly, I can host a Minecraft server.

So performance wise, Windows 8 is alright, but everything else, not so good.

[JC2010]

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Fake data spewed by Apple fanboys.

Don't be naive. I'm a Windows user and i still think Windows 8 sucks compared to Windows 7, and anyway, Windows 7 was a newly OS, why the rush to do another. People won't jump quickly.

[oldschoolh4ck3r]

I took a day to test Windows 8. What a huge waste fo time that was.

The Metro interface and the graphical updates geared for touchscreen usage look awful and boring. There's no excuse for this. Android and iOS both enable a touchscreen experience without sacrificing visual quality.

Windows 8 sets keyboard/mouse users back 20 years by ruining the whole interaction experience. What used to be a straightforward, simple point-and-click process now involves the positioning of the mouse cursor over VERY specific areas of the screen just to pop up something like a "charms bar". Ugh.

Internet Explorer looks crude and is definitely geared for touchscreen - not desktop use. Not that it matters to me - I'll never go back to IE after all the malware infestations it allowed to occur.

Microsoft seems to be pushing users to use the cloud in Windows 8. I personally don't want to have to sign into Microsoft's servers just to log into my personal computer. Nor do I have any plans to store my personal data there, either. Some tout this feature as convenience. I see it for what it is - a huge invasion of privacy and a way for Microsoft to make you further reliant on them to use your PC. Internet goes down? Oops - NO CLOUD ACCESS!

Some of my critical apps, which have worked in Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 are now broken in Windows 8. This is because Microsoft took Windows 7 and stripped it down of so much that it had to offer (common library files and other components) that ensured widespread compatibility. I had to hunt down DLL/OCX files to 'piece together' Windows 8 to do what these older operating systems have done for over a decade now.

As for the boost in speed, I'm just not seeing it. Startup and shutdown times are the same. Perhaps it's because I'm not running top-of-the-line SSDs, in which case it's the HARDWARE not the SOFTWARE to attribute the speed increases to.

Jumping between Metro and the 'classic' desktop interface (now an "app") is annoying and distracting.

One moment Windows 8 seems to be running fine. Then, without notice, my hard drive starts 'crunching' away excessively for a very long time, slowly everything to a crawl. The culprit? A Windows 8 system process. Probably another unnecessary service like SuperFetch - Microsoft's way of improving performance by killing performance. Makes sense, doesn't it?

In summary, my 3 words to describe Windows 8:
DOWNGRADED - BROKEN - FAIL !

Microsoft: if you're going to make a touchscreen OS, take the time to do it right. Don't take a success (Windows 7) and turn it into a pile of garbage, thinking you're going to fill your pockets doing so. You can't rip the wheels of a car, put a sail on the thing and call it a boat!

[Jameshoqh]

People vote with their dollars. The sad fact is Microsoft could still fix this, with a patch or service pack. They could have a start menu for those that want it, and live tiles for those that want it. I doubt they will though. Listen to your customers, and try to give them what they want to the best of your ability.

[LiveBrianD]

Jameshoqh, on 27 December 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

People vote with their dollars. The sad fact is Microsoft could still fix this, with a patch or service pack. They could have a start menu for those that want it, and live tiles for those that want it. I doubt they will though. Listen to your customers, and try to give them what they want to the best of your ability.

If the reports of Windows Blue still having metro (though in a more customization form) are to be believed, it looks like they're still scratching their heads, completely oblivious to the fact that plenty of people don't want metro and as a result reception continues to be lukewarm.

[Fischer82]

Windows 8 is a great OS if you have a touch enabled PC which there are not a lot of yet. It has been difficult for vendors to make them available with most of them not shipping until January. Most people realize there is really no point in upgrading from Windows 7 unless you have touch so it is no wonder it is not popular yet since the vendors are having trouble getting touch to the people. However, I found Windows 8 useful on my 4 year old Media Center PC because the Apps make everything nice and easy to see from my couch. Still as an IT manager I don't see adopting it for our 1000+ computers because of the learning curve and it would be great if MS would give us a patch to return the start menu. For now we'll just use it on touch enabled PCs/

[gregrocker]

What rescued Vista was improvements developed in Win7 to set all Services not needed to start with Windows to Manual on Fast Triggers, rushed into a Service Pack so that most don't even remember what a dog it was at release.

What can rescue Win8 is again Win7. It is a perfect Desktop Experience which is the opposite of WIndows 8 (as apparently intended), and wildly popular with users who are only now coming fully online with it. At SevenForums we're swamped helping with Win7 with help requests every few seconds. I hardly have time to look at Windows 8 but note that I've not heard a single postivie comment about it.

Put the WIn8 explorer improvements into SP2 for Win7 and keep the most popular and perfect OS in history giving a perfect Desktop Experience.

[ronin7752]

"Worse than Vista" That's what we were predicting...

...And who told ya' this was going to happen? Will you listen to us next time? Of course not, you geekie-kiddies, Gates worshippers, and marketing idiots will *always* ignore experienced, "front-line" IT Professionals!

I'm starting to get support calls from new owners of Win 8 systems, now, and the impact is exactly what I expected -- disaster! ...But I predict it will take at least three more months for M$ to finally realize that they've completely blown their foot off this time...!

[ronin7752]

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Yeah im starting to think that windows 8 is going to be a failure. I still like it though but it kind of sucks that no one else does. I think it's because it's so radically different than any other operating system, most people don't like change. It seems that most people like it after they get used to it, but getting people to try windows 8 is the hard part.

If you have to work hard at learning something before you decide to like it, it it is *NOT* "user friendly"....

[raguramm]

I'm not loving Windows 8, and not hating it either, but it could definitely improve. It's a bold move, and one I would truly appreciate if it weren't so OBLIGATORY to use touch and Metro. If MS had taken Windows 7, added in things like the new task manager and file copy interface, and had the app store and touch compatibility integrated without *downplaying the desktop's role*, I wouldn't have cared HOW much the thing cost.

[tbiM20]

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Yeah im starting to think that windows 8 is going to be a failure. I still like it though but it kind of sucks that no one else does. I think it's because it's so radically different than any other operating system, most people don't like change. It seems that most people like it after they get used to it, but getting people to try windows 8 is the hard part.

Agreed. Most of the same keyboard shortcuts still work, and people could really do the exact same things on this OS that they did on Windows 7... the problem is that it looks different, and a few things got rearranged.

Personally I like having both apps that I can download, try out, and switch out frequently (as opposed to free software = beware!), and my usual programs.

[gregrocker]

Besides putting the Win8 explorer into SP2 for Win7 which is overdue, grant UPgrade rights to WIn7 for those who bought Win8 PC's, then sell Win8 retail and preinstalled only to touchscreens which it works well upon. Recognize Win7 is a wildly popular OS and the perfect Desktop Experiences, doesn't show its age at 3 at all, and should live as long as XP aside Win8 sold as a touchscreen OS.