Anyone here think that Windows 8 is 'vastly superior' to iOS and Android?

[Edward M. Grant]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Heh! All the IT folks.

Who were not the market for Windows 95. Other than ME, in my experience end users were quite happy with every version of Windows from 3.1 to XP, and 95 was clearly a major improvement over 3.1.

I've had to use Windows 7 at work on and off for the last couple of weeks and the UI feels really clunky compared to XP. We regularly have a dozen windows open on screen and switching between them requires a bunch of animations and trying to guess which of the window previews is actually the window I want. 8 looks even worse.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Heh! All the IT folks. "All the retraining! No Compact Program Manager front-and-center! And that crappy Start Menu! Cascading and spreading all over the screen!"
http://toastytech.com/guis/win95.html

In 95 I was just turning 12 and I didn't have internet at home, probably the same reason why many users didn't complain online. Anyway, I found this: http://www.empowermentzone.com/w95annoy.txt, and in it a part that brings back memories:

What to do if You Hate Explorer

Explorer is an improvement over the old File Manager, but not by much, and the cute little yellow folders everywhere just remind us why we didn't buy a Macintosh. Here's what every red-blooded Windows power-user should be using:

Obtain the Norton Navigator by Symantec. It includes the newest version of XTree for Windows (not the dreaded 4.0), with built-in ZIP and FTP!! Recommended
Power users might still prefer XTree for DOS.

I loved XTree!

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Edward M. Grant

Who were not the market for Windows 95. Other than ME, in my experience end users were quite happy with every version of Windows from 3.1 to XP, and 95 was clearly a major improvement over 3.1.

I've had to use Windows 7 at work on and off for the last couple of weeks and the UI feels really clunky compared to XP. We regularly have a dozen windows open on screen and switching between them requires a bunch of animations and trying to guess which of the window previews is actually the window I want.

The first thing I do when setting up a Win7 computer at work is to set the desktop theme to Windows Classic, which pretty well emulates XP. It turns off a lot of the distracting animated crap that eats up CPU resources and memory. Set it once, and it's set.

Originally Posted by Edward M. Grant

8 looks even worse.

Win8 has a classic desktop mode, but it's not a theme, it's a program that runs in Win8. And, apparently, it can't bet set to run automatically on start up (it could be in the Beta, but that's been deliberately disabled on the production version, from what the news reports say). The actual desktop on Win8 is a significant step backwards in capabilities over any other version since 3.1. Microsoft wants all versions of Windows to be identical, and they see mobile devices as the future. They're wrong, and they're stupid, because desktops aren't going away[1], and a cell phone interface on a desktop is just broken.

[1]Growth is mostly in the mobile device market these days, but the desktop market isn't shrinking. It's just saturated. That means it's staying the same size. People are still buying desktops, just not more than they used to. And it's still a lot bigger market, dollar wise, than mobile devices, though that will eventually change. But Microsoft, if they do not backtrack with Win9, will lost that multi-billion dollar market entirely, because Win8 is simply unusable on a desktop.

[markbot]

I really like the live tiles conceit. I prefer it over boring icons, something everyone is used to from desktop operating systems. The live tiles are a bit of a jump forward beyond icons. But, MSFT has a very difficult challenge attacking computing from the top (big devices) to smaller/mobile devices. Apple is attacking it from small devices...phones and tablets. Soon, these mobile apps are going to be sophisticated enough such that u don't need a desktop or laptop anymore...all they really need is a productivity software. Hence, msft including office in windows surface tablet. If the surface is priced at $300 I'm going to get one...it's worth it just for Office and the keyboard.

[Namekuseijin]

Apple was always the one to write the future of computing, that I can agree because it's a fact ever since the original Apple microcomputer. MS is a scumbag that's ridden the IBM PC sales with an OS they bought from someone else. They've ever since bought a lot of other tech.

both are scumbags, but Apple is the innovative one.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by taustin

Win8 has a classic desktop mode, but it's not a theme, it's a program that runs in Win8. And, apparently, it can't bet set to run automatically on start up .

Much of the great flexibility of Windows, as well as it's tendency to get bogged down over time, comes from the ease with which programmers can put their creations in the startup. I don't know about Windows on ARM, but on Intel or AMD processors, all you would have to do is put a program that presses the Window key, and then D, in the startup. I mean no endorsement of the program in my next link, but this shows people are doing it:

http://www.softwarecrew.com/2012/08/...p-metro-suite/

If you really want to go retro, I can't see why you couldn't put opening, and maximizing, the command (MS-DOS) window in the startup.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Edward M. Grant

Who were not the market for Windows 95.

Neither were they the *target* market for XP or Win7 or Win8.
They were and are the single biggest buyers of PCs and the biggest gripers about PC interfaces.
Just because you didn't see the griping in your circles doesn't mean it wasn't all over in industry cicles. It was. Just scan the PC WEEKs, InfoWorlds, and Information Weeks of any release era.
(Historicaly, IT depts' biggest gripe has been that MS designs desktop OSes for the users' convenience, not theirs like they do the server OSes. )
(Second biggest gripe is that MS markets corporate OSes to *management*--the people who cut the checks, not the operations staff. And they never can quite figure out why. )
(I love watching IT folk squirm, in case it wasn't clear.)
It's all sound and fury that blows over once the product ships, is run through the IT departments' testing and configuration processes, and the orders (by the thousand) are placed.
MS has issues and challenges but if acceptance of the new front-end is the biggest one, then Ballmer is correct and Win8 will be a big hit.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by taustin

The first thing I do when setting up a Win7 computer at work is to set the desktop theme to Windows Classic, which pretty well emulates XP. It turns off a lot of the distracting animated crap that eats up CPU resources and memory. Set it once, and it's set.

The first thing I do when setting up a "win" anything computer at work is reformat the disk prior to installing linux.

[GlenBarrington]

It's just one more "Big Money" infrastructure that wants to tie me permanently to it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, they'll all try to screw us eventually, we just don't know when, or how trivial the reason will be.

I'm currently using Android, but when it's time to upgrade, I will buy the tool that best meets my then current needs. If you think your iPhone or your Android phone really matters, you are being very foolish.

[Rizla]

Windows 7 search *still* doesn't work. I *still* have to press F5 half the time to show I deleted a file in explorer. Core functionality *still* not fixed several years after release.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

A basic task, such as copy/paste from a browser window to an email or from one email to another, is a nightmare of inefficiency.
You go back to the email client. But you don't see the last email opened, but the email client without open email. Or you may see the email, but it didn't remember the last position.

I'm not sure what version of Android you're using here, but on ICS at least switching back to the email client remembers both the email and where your cursor is positioned. You can certainly switch away to the browser, copy some text, switch back to the email, and paste it in, exactly as you'd expect.

Graham

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Graham

I'm not sure what version of Android you're using here, but on ICS at least switching back to the email client remembers both the email and where your cursor is positioned. You can certainly switch away to the browser, copy some text, switch back to the email, and paste it in, exactly as you'd expect.

Would this depend on the available RAM?

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by franYo

On Windows 8 Enterprise edition (Build 9200) you can run two apps in the Metro interface. I'm not sure how it's done on a touchscreen, but with a mouse you go to the top of the screen until the cursor changes to a hand and then click and drag without releasing the button. If you drag the app to the bottom of the screen, it closes. If you drag it to the left or right it sort of docks there, taking up about a quarter of the screen. Now you can start another app and it will fill the other three quarters. Not sure if this can be done on Windows 8 RT, but I don't see why not.

Also, as far as I understand (this is not from personal experience), Windows 8 RT does in fact include a desktop. RT comes with a basic version of the MS Office suite, and the four included applications (Word, Excel, Power Point and One Note) are not Metro apps. I expect some other standard Windows applications will be included too (Windows Explorer and such). What you can't do is install third party applications (desktop applications, that is); it's a compatibility issue, since RT runs on ARM processors.

the consumer versions I have seen didn't do that. Probably br a selling point.
"For $100 more, upgrade to enterprise, where you can have TWO apps on screen at once!"

Originally Posted by Edward M. Grant

Who exactly was complaining about the 'clearly inferior' Windows 95 GUI compared to Windows 3.1? Or the 'clearly inferior' Windows 2 compared to Windows 1?

Similarly, about the only complaints I remember about XP's GUI was that it had rounded corners on the windows and shadows on the mouse pointer.

It's only since XP that people have been complaining about each new release being a step backwards in usability.

Where were you? Lots of people complained about 95. Main reason it saw faster adoption was due to improved networking. XP also had lots of complaints about the "Fischer Price" colors and new start menu.

Originally Posted by Edward M. Grant

Windows won the desktop GUI wars because it was the cheapest viable option.

The first really usable version of Windows was 3.0, and at that time you could buy a Unix workstation ($10,000+), a Mac ($5,000-10,000?), an IBM PC with OS/2 ($2,000-10,000?), or a generic PC with Windows ($1,000-2,000?). Prices are based on what I could find on the web and I don't remember whether early OS/2 ran on generic PCs as well as PS/2.

Windows was a joke compared to a Sun workstation, but you could buy a new car for the difference in price. Even OS/2 required more powerful hardware than Windows and came with a lot less free software. Pretty soon Windows had the largest software market overall, and when Windows 95 came out it was all over for the competition.

Windows will not be the cheapest option on tablets, will not have the largest tablet software base, and will still be seen as the cheap, low-quality brand it always was. Perhaps they can sell to business markets that are still tied to Windows, but I honestly can't see how they can sell Windows on consumer tablets short of massively subsidising tablet OEMs to push the price way down. Users looking for a premium brand will keep buying iPads, us cheapskates who don't want the Apple lock-in will keep buying Android.

and as it has been shown, MS is actively competing with the OEMs (MS Surface). The OEM lock in was why MS got so far ahead on desktops. Problem is, they've not tried that on phones or tablets.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Would this depend on the available RAM?

Yeah. The info on last state gets flushed based on amount of available memory, how many apps you've opened in the meanwhile, and how long it has been since you've last used it (which the latter two come in to play due to memory limitations)

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Yeah. The info on last state gets flushed based on amount of available memory, how many apps you've opened in the meanwhile, and how long it has been since you've last used it (which the latter two come in to play due to memory limitations)

This is what I expected. It's a feature, not a flaw. It doesn't matter what the OS is capable of if there isn't the hardware to support it.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

This is what I expected. It's a feature, not a flaw. It doesn't matter what the OS is capable of if there isn't the hardware to support it.

Well, the alternative is to either have the OS become progressively more sluggish, and ultimately crash, use more storage space (which, cannot be depended on, due to manufacturor decisions.), or not attempt to do it at all.

That said, I have a Nexus S 4G, which is one of the older phones running Jellybean, and i'm really not having any issues with it, and I am a heavy user.