URL: http://www.computerworlduk.com/slideshow/operating-systems/3349538/windows-8--eight-reasons-new-microsoft-os-is-not-ready-for-the-desktop/

There's some stupid reasons in that article.

One big one is "7. Game room or board room?".
They insinuate that Windows can either be a consumer OS or a business OS, but not both.

What crack are they on? Windows has always been both, and that's part of the appeal of Windows 8. It's not some fad OS that attempts to just placate one fraction of the market. It's doing what Windows has always tried to do - be all things to all people. Now, sure, this may be doomed to fail, but they'll get a damn sight closer than everyone else who doesn't even seem interested in trying.

I, personally, applaud MS for doing the right thing and taking the tougher route of making Win8 scale. It's the technically superior path and will pay dividends once they perfect it. Still, it's what I've come to expect from the only one of the large tech companies that take a real interest in Research and Development these days.

Ok its time for someone to say something. The Windows 8 OS in its current form is a POS for desktop users. @ hounsell you are just nit picking the issue man I mean I know tablets sell a bunch but the tablet world is just that. The Desktop is the primary computer used by the world thus making a OS that is exclusively meant for a tablet is just short sighted. Raise your hand if you have Windows 8 on a tablet your part of the minority not all of us have a tablet. Now if this OS is not using a fraction of the market I'll go grab the figures. According to PC World there were 67 million tablets sold last year which is not a bad amount however. There were 364 million sales of PC's this year well on its way to 400 million now if this makes sense please an excuse of why it does?

Now I am done flaming you out.

The IBM compatible Desktop PC has been around since 1981. The tablet form factor has only been popular since 2010. Of course traditional desktop PCs are outselling tablet PCs right now, they've been around longer and so that's what people are more used to. I think that in the near future, tablets will become the defacto form factor for the average consumer's PC, and that is what Microsoft is banking on with Windows 8.

I believe I need to come out with more facts then @ linux to make my point. The Tablet computer is not owning the market its a fraction of what people use today banking on the tablet computer market exploding to 300% growth is just stupid. Am I the only person who is saying here that making an all tablet OS is just premature. This is not as bad blunder wise as Vista but a Mobile Operating system / Tablet is just not supposed to go on a Desktop PC without changes. Now I agree tablet computing is looking good with the potential to have quad core and Octo core chips later but the near future is not now or a year from now. We need an operating system which satisfies all not a minority of only 67 million users as opposed to 400 million.

I trust hounsell on this one. Not only are his statements based on the study of Microsoft's history and basic logic, but he understands the proper use of punctuation and sentence structure. I find Windows 8 easier to use on my desktop than Windows 7, and I use a keyboard and mouse. Don't try to tell me it's not ready. Anyone who says it isn't ready for the desktop isn't putting any effort into learning to use it.

Did I say that the tablet PC owns the computer market right now? No. I said that I think that in the near future, tablets will become the defacto form factor for consumer PCs. That is pure opinion and speculation right there; I could be very wrong. However, let's move on.


Tablets, like the first IBM PCs, are going to gradually increase in popularity. When IBM released their first PC in 1981, did everyone and their dog have a PC? No. It took many years for IBM PCs to become as popular as they are today, and that was because people saw the PC as a viable means of changing the way they work, play and educate.


Yes, you are. It is better for Microsoft to go ahead and get Windows 8 out there than to wait for tablet PCs to become mainstream and miss out on a potentially huge opportunity. By the time tablets become mainstream, Windows will already have a lot of the kinks worked out in the tablet world.


Vista was only bad because the OEMs and hardware manufacturers made it bad.


Agreed. Could you stand using iOS or Android as a full-time desktop OS? Yes, Windows 8 is making a huge push for the tablet market, but that's not all they're concentrating on. If they only wanted to focus on the tablet market, why are they still working on the traditional desktop?


And that's just what Microsoft is trying to do, satisfy both tablet and desktop users. It's not either/or, it's and.


This.

Some things are still a tad awkward in some areas of 8, that I don't deny. But the fundamental concept is sound, and they have a strong, suitable base on which to build. It's just a case of refining the concept.

I guess I'll respond now your telling me the tablets are the wave of the future but there is an issue with this (not grammatically). I know the tablet form factor will eventually catch up but the desktop will always have more power than a Tablet regardless. Now being realistic and historical the first good tablet in all reasonableness was the Apple Newton which used a stylus since I have one somewhere around the house. Going on if you have an issue with my punctuation / Grammar then take it else-ware please. Now not putting the effort into using the operating system really guys come on that's hardly an excuse; dissect my arguments all you wish but the base holds up firm.

I will fight on all fronts if I must @ Linux Love so lets do this thing.

Tablets are growing at a respectable rate but making an operating system that uses them entirely to themselves in a Desktop World is just stupid. That probably handles the the Issue of the Tablet argument you presented because the Desktop has had many years to proliferate around the world. The Tablet is NOT that new man it was made back in 1993 if you wish to go back further I can because that was when the Apple Newton Computer was made.

Next This is not a tablet world I would agree that making a new operating system to improve on Windows 7 is a good idea but changing the GUI to just make it work for Tablets is flawed reasoning. I don't have to have a reason as to why it is so just the matter of fact that just a narrow amount of people have touch enabled devices that are not APPLE or run IOS.

Now I will handle the Vista part really? Vista was such a disaster because the driver issues as well as restarting development half way through. Next it was not just the OEM's and Hardware Manufacturers thats like blaming the kids who had mommy take away the candy to make it really simple.

Its time to get to the point Microsoft is pretty much spitting in the faces of all those using Desktop machines. I've tested every build of Windows 8 from 7850 (post win7) to 8250. The reason why Android was such a success was the ability to let people choose how they want to get stuff done on there own phones. What concept is there in Windows 8 then I wonder having the user take more time to get the basic tasks done? I mean I know almost every single Shortcut command I grew up in high school learning them so I wouldn't get caught doing bad stuff. However not everyone does, why force a klunky graphic user interface on the world which is so used to the start menu and basics? That just flatly does not make sense.

It also made no sense to add the taskbar and Start menu to a world used to command-line. But it worked. And if you don't like Metro, it's almost ridiculously easy to run everything from the Classic Desktop. About the only thing you can't do is set it to use Classic by default, and that could very well be an option in the final release. Bottom line is that you may not like Windows 8, and that's fine. But tearing down everybody who disagrees with you and trying to make yourself sound superior ("dissect my arguments all you wish but the base holds up firm.") is not going to convert anyone to your views.

PS: I think it's hilarious that you accuse Microsoft of "spitting in the faces" of people using desktops, as if your personal opinion of the OS is shared by the vast majority of users.

Maybe on the low-end ARM and x86 front. However, there are high-end tablets out there - take a look at the Samsung Series 7 Slate, that features an Intel Core i5 processor. That's pretty powerful if you ask me.


You would prefer to bounce around from UI to UI when you switch from tablet to desktop? That's odd reasoning, because the move from UI to UI like that is quite jarring. Microsoft is attempting to solve this problem by giving us the same UI across every platform.


I understand the fact that the tablet idea goes back to the 90s, if not earlier. However, it took years for the idea to actually catch on where the idea of a tablet actually sounds good. Hmm... that reminds me of the pre- and early IBM PC days.


No, not now but again, I think it will be in the near future.


Try running Windows 7 on a tablet. You'll understand why Metro and the Explorer Ribbon exist after trying that.



If they hadn't reset development on Vista, Microsoft probably would not be in existence any more or if they were, they and the Windows name would be permanently tarnished.


True, Vista itself had some hefty bugs in it when it hit RTM. However, the OEMs and hardware manufacturers are still very much at fault. They present Windows; if they make bad drivers or ship inadequate hardware it will make Windows look bad.


Again, bouncing back and forth between UIs is a very jarring experience.


And because of this, Android is full of bloat from OEMs and is also full of security issues, plus the Android Market is full of duplicate apps with only a string or two changed in them.


I thought the concept of computers was to make our lives simpler? That seems to me what Microsoft is doing in Windows 8, letting the average Joe get to their apps and documents quickly and easily.


Unless you blow it up to... hmm, actually... the exact same size as Metro, the Start Menu just is not touch-friendly. Microsoft even did tests on Metro vs. Start Menu and found that it was actually faster to find apps in Metro than it was the Start Menu. See this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011 ... creen.aspx


Again, this.

I can personally verify this. My desktop has a touch screen, which I have disabled because it was FREAKING USELESS to try and do ANYTHING by touch on Windows 7. You want to talk about needless complexity? On average, it took me four times as long to accomplish a task (starting a new Word document, finding a file, etc) with touch as it did with keyboard and mouse. The "Classic" Windows interface is useless for touch, and whether you want to admit it or not the computing world is headed in a touch-centric direction. A redesign was not only timely but necessary. On Metro I can navigate with keyboard and mouse OR through touch, and both methods feel equally intuitive and simple.

Microsoft's strategy is that eventually the UI on tablets, phones and desktops will become similar so that users get the same experience on all devices. Apple is bringing in some iOS like UIs in their latest version. I think Microsoft has the right idea long term, but it has not been implemented very well yet. Its sort of like going back and forth between a full screen command line and a GUI before GUIs took over. It will take a few editions of Windows to get it working smooth.

There is a large contrast between Metro and the classic Windows style and they just don't fit well together. They had the same problem when moving to metro on Windows Mobile/Phone and chose to start fresh by killing off all backward compatibility. Obviously this would not work on the x86/64 desktop where backward compatibility is needed.



Exactly, thats the biggest issue with metro right now, Explorer does not mesh well with it.



I'm calling BS on that. In Windows 7 I hit the Windows button and start typing then press Enter to launch the first result. I can do the same in Windows 8 but it has to cycle through the metro start menu which takes a bit longer, versus never leaving Explorer on Windows 7.

All this statement does is go to show you have no clue what you're talking about.

The first good tablet in production was the GRiDPad, circa 1989, whereas the Apple Newton Messagepad was circa 1993. And don't say "oh it was the first but it sucked" because it was made of METAL, and used by the US Army. GRiD laptops have been dropped from helicopters and worked perfectly afterwards.

Kinda off-topic, but I felt like whipping out my knowledge-peen for once

If you ask me Windows 8 is the biggest weakness but also the biggest fortress in the MS history. I really like metro, in fact I find it just as easy as W7's explorer but there are some things that MS could have kept.

For example, the charms on WDP were a really awesome implementation.; also the average user would know that clicking on the Win flag would lead them to the start point (Start screen in this case). I know we need to progress ... but this was the best "tutorial" MS could have ever created (and they did created it).

Now on the WCP you have to drag your mouse to the other side of the screen just to bring charms. Why!?, It was OK for tablets, but for desktops it doesn't makes too much sense to drag your mouse all over the screen. And what if you have 2 or more monitors? I do and it's kinda frustrating that you want to reach the charms or the start preview/running apps, and then OH NO! you are on the other screen. Same happens with start, once you go to the desktop it's not really easy to find out how to go back to the start screen. A lot of users doesn't even know about the existence of a Win key!

Having the same UI across all your devices (W8 Metro on desktop/tablet and WP7 on the smartphone) is a really awesome idea (I'm not really fond of it, I prefer a different UI for everything =P) but you can't just treat a tablet like a desktop or viceversa (W7 someone?). MS should make some distinctions between a tablet and a desktop, like they did on the WDP (And no, not a whole different UI; just small changes to the way of interacting with some elements, all on the same UI). That's what MS must do in order to make W8 a really big success.

Also there are minor UI issues that should be resolved, like the shutdown options or letting you run a metro style app per monitor to make a joy to use Windows 8.

I really like metro, nice, simple and a new twist of using Windows, but MS needs a lot of effort to avoid making 7 the new XP with support up to 2025 and users refusing to switch.

The main danger in usability for Windows 8 doesn't lie in how we, as BetaArchive members, interact with it. Personally, while I prefer the Windows 7 UI, Metro is still kinda cool (though I'd like there to be more tiling options than currently exist).

No, the main danger is how the casual user interacts. The big, friendly buttons may seem obvious, but take a user who's been on Windows since the 90s and they won't know what to do. There'll be no Start button to guide them as to where to go, and even with a tutorial, it's still something the user will have to consciously think about every time they use the computer. When it stops being intuitive, then we have a problem. One of Windows' main strengths over the years is how the interface just worked for people; even Windows 7 with its new appearance didn't change that much. Removing the Start button (even if it opens the Start screen), in all honesty, is a crap move.

I'm hoping Microsoft at least add an option to have a Start button display, or remove it if you don't like the screen real estate being taken up. Even Windows 95 had a Program Manager option in its initial setup for the Windows 3.x users too scared to make the change.

I ran my own tests on a Windows Vista SP2 PC and a Windows 8 Beta PC. I ran Windows Calculator five times on each system using the method you described (hitting the Windows key, typing in the program name, pressing enter) and I found that on average, it took 2.6 seconds to load Calculator on Vista with the Start Menu versus 2.0 seconds to load Calculator on 8 with Metro. I'm not being unfair with my test rigs either, they're both very similarly matched.

Sorry I needed to catch up on the thread guys now lets continue.

I agree that the Windows 7 UI is worthless on a Tablet because I'm running a HP tx2z-1000 however the cute little start orb was still nice to have. On the next front though it does take longer to run Applications on the new windows 8 User interface I could put the tile I wish to have on the start screen which takes about the same time to run. However I would appreciate being able to dig into the internal programs that are not typically shown in the start screen. I know the shortcuts as well as anyone else however there is one other grief I have which is that of dragging the entire desktop screen to take up certain parts of the screen. I find it completely retarded that they make it so that the desktop only can use about 20% of the entire screen I'm being nice to because its probably less.

To be moderate the best move at this point would be to keep metro as well as the like but put in an option to take the Windows 7 start orb and insert it into Windows 8 without using third party tools however much I love VI start.

@ Tandyman it was an example so I was off on my example I'm only 21 at the moment so I grew up on cell phones that were bricks so I'm not that old.

Now its a neat idea to have the same User Interface (UI) across so many platforms but I fail to see how feasible such a strategy will be. I can see apple getting away with it but even they are using two different Operating Systems however they mesh well together but are not the same thing. You have IOS on one end while MacOSX built off of NEXTOS on the other they each know there place.

I personally use Windows 8 on my Desktop power house now your saying that the I5 is a respectable chip however its only running at 1.6 Ghz I personally have a custom rig which is running a Phenom II X6 1090t @ 4.09 GHZ. Keeping that in mind thats roughly 24.5 Ghz of power for me to use. Also lets go into the fact that most Tablets / Phones use upwards of 4GB of Ram where as we have computers that can boast for us 8 - 32 GB of RAM. I'm sorry I fail to see your reasoning with comparing a tablet running 1.6 Ghz to a computer that just stomps it like Bambi meats Godzilla.

And what with the users that have something like a netbook (Way less processing power even that they are at the same speed, 1.6ghz) And use 8? I did for some time and it wasn't the same experience as on my main (And even my main it's not the greatest computer). They don't have a great performance but Win 8 runs really well. With tablets the experience is way better.

Also MS decided to treat tablet's HW like desktop's HW because their strategy is to make tablets as good as desktops, laptops and better than netbooks, without sacrificing all of the ecosystem that you may have on your current desktop. Apple treated tablets like smartphones; you can only consume content and that is what is working really well with them. Even Google decided to treat smartphones and tablets like something different (for some time).

Remember that eventually Lion brought characteristics and Mountain Lion will bring even more characteristics from iOS. And don't doubt that in some time Apple will have one and only one OS. (And I can hear the same story repeats all over again). Google did the same thing with ICS and MS instead of taking WP7 took W8 and did this.

But it still needs some polishing; I hope for RP MS make a more intuitive OS (It 's already but there are issues unresolved).

Hi, just thought I'd point out SMP doesn't quite work that way. However do tell me, if you now see i7s making their ways in to laptops (which could smash the hell out of your Bulldozer if/when Intel develop their new mobile platform, it's perfectly possible and you will be sad that your rig is outdated, that's how computing works), what's to stop tablets getting similar hardware? You're thinking the tablet age will stay back in the 1800s when people used slate tablets and chalk in education (if they could afford it!). As linuxlove said, tablet hardware is not primitive and does pack punch for it's form factor. Yes your desktop is powerful but tablets in the future could become powerhouses and beat desktops. However, you forget the big key factor here. Form factor. Let me see you carry your 10/20KG computer around town and use it. Oh wait, that's a big form factor; too bulky. An i5 tablet technically has more power to practicality value and that's the thing we should focus on here; practicality not shear brute performance. If you dislike Windows 8, nothing stops you from using Windows 7. You will probably be laughed at for making such a silly decision however.
tl;dr, a tablet could possibly become powerful enough to do the tasks a desktop can and a tablet would work much better in the portability section. I am not saying that tablets will become faster than desktops any time soon or within the next hundred years in fact, but you should keep a close eye to see how far a tablet could go if such power could be shoehorned.

Again, this.

Fine you show me a tablet computer in the next 5 years that has equal power to a desktop computer then I'll believe anything you say.

That's not the point, Smorgan. Tablets will probably never be the equals of their current-generation counterparts in raw power. But raw power is not the only measure of value or utility. My laptop is less powerful than my desktop, but it has MUCH more utility because I can carry it with me. Your stubborn insistence on using raw power as the ONLY measure of worth and utility is unfairly hampering your ability to talk about this in a sensible manner.

Short version: Portability matters as much as power, so quit talking about power like it's the only measure of worth.

Is this because you are too blind to see there is more to computing than sitting in front of a 24" screen all day long?
Like I said, go take out your 15KG PC and perform every task a mobile computer could. Oh wait, you cannot as ATX is an impractical form factor for portability. Take a tablet that could have an i7M if anyone makes one (which they should). I could play CS:S at the office and run that presentation off it, etc etc. Tablets will be slightly more practical than laptops in a portability sense. Tablets previously lacked practicality because of Android's limits to be fair. Windows 8 aims to fix this and add full functional use of your tablet.

^This is why MS made Windows the OS for tablets and not WP7.

An believe me some tablets have the same power than a laptop. Is only a matter of time so that they can reach desktops.

45.39 percent of all the windows users uses windows xp, and they will stop supporting it, so that means that everyone need to go to a new windows, that will be a chaos, because if everyone goes to windows 8, then no one knows what to do because everything changed. why windows did not make a windows 8 desktop version, a windows 8 metro version, and a windows 8 metro with deskop version.

and to compare a tablet with a desktop, desktop will always be the winner lead.