Windows 8 Died at Launch, Microsoft Moves on to Windows 9

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
The Daily Caller

Microsoft attempted something different and daring with Windows 8. It introduced a whole new interface and means of interaction with your PC that was identical to a smartphone or tablet. It threw out the “Start” menu and mouse-driven interface people had used for decades in favor of a touch-driven interface with tiles, some of which received active information updates.

And people hated it.

“They tried to get their entire audience to jump from a UI [user interface] they were comfortable with to a brand new one with a serious learning curve,” California-based Creative Strategies tech analyst and president Tim Bajarin said. “Had they done a more transitionary product, especially keeping the Start button, I don’t think the impact and perception would have been as bad.”

By removing the Start button, which had been a Windows fixture since Windows 95, Microsoft wasn’t just introducing a new way of using the operating system — it was trying to force people away from the only one they had known for two decades.

The result was that Windows 8 was slaughtered in the court of public opinion, often compared to the much-maligned Windows Vista released in 2006. It was an incorrect comparison; Vista was a technological hairball, a truly awful piece of software that often failed when people tried to install it on their PCs.

Windows 8 was technically sound. No one complained of crashing, slow performance or old apps not working on it. People noted it was actually a tad faster than Windows 7, they just hated how it looked. The result was slow sales for Windows 8, but Windows 7, the OS it was supposed to replace, kept selling like hotcakes.

“Its distinguishing feature was support for touchscreens but also legacy applications,” Endpoint Technologies President Roger Kay said. Endpoint is a Boston-based market research firm. “It ended up being a Frankenstein. So the good parts, like being a little faster and more reliable and more secure were almost totally invisible to the end user. So you could tell people it was faster and more reliable and they said ‘I don’t know how to use it.’”

Kay said the beating Windows 8 took in the tech press hurt, but users also hated it. Microsoft released a public beta for anyone to download and use on February 29, 2012, and released the product in October, 2012. During that time, in all the public Windows forums, “consumers were gnashing their teeth and stomping their feet about it. It was vilified in public forums,” Kay said.

The old guard who came up with Windows 8 and refused to listen to beta testers are gone and Microsoft has more or less given up trying to rescue its slandered OS. There will be another significant update to Windows 8.1 (called Update 2) later this year. After that, the new management are focusing their efforts on Windows 9.

Windows 9, which Microsoft internally calls “Threshold,” should ship around the second quarter of 2015. It will put the Windows 8 interface on the back burner but not throw it out, since applications written for Windows 8 would be broken. The familiar desktop with the Start button will be back.

Bajarin expects Windows 9 will return all of the familiar elements of Windows 7 and prior operating systems, with the new UI relegated to the back burner while new features are added to bring people forward.

“I don’t think it will be radical at all,” Bajarin said. ”I think they will make it easier to work with user interfaces of the past and provide better transition for those with older operating systems to come into this era.”

That could include tighter cloud services integration. One feature widely rumored but not confirmed by Microsoft is that it will offer seamless, tight cloud integration into the OS. Your OneDrive storage will be as easy to access as the “C: drive,” so all of your documents, personal files, photos, etc. will go right to the cloud without having to think about it.

Apps might also be potentially stored in the cloud as well. Say you log on to another Windows 9 PC using your login and password –not only will your data files be accessible from your cloud storage, but also the apps you use.

Kay expects more cloud-oriented features as well.

“It would be good to move to a cloud-oriented OS to do updates more frequently and keep the OS alive,” Kay said. “That way you would check in to the cloud at login but run locally, so you could work anywhere.”

He also doesn’t expect Windows 9 to be a major departure from the operating systems of old.

“You’d expect them to do more in order to justify all of the effort of creating a new OS other than fixing the old one. There will be a lot of it will be bells and whistles, but a lot of that stuff tends to fall into Who-Cares? territory,” Kay said.

Another rumored addition to Windows 9 is Cortana — the digital voice assistant currently being rolled out to Windows Phone users. Cortana is like the iPhone’s Siri: ask it a question and it fetches the proper contextual answer. Microsoft has made comments in recent weeks about bringing Cortana to Windows PCs, and Windows 9 would be the most logical candidate to get its own answer to J.A.R.V.I.S.

At this point, it’s all speculation, but one thing is for certain: Microsoft needs to get Windows 9 right. Kay noted that Microsoft has had only one good operating system in its last three releases over the last eight years. Windows 7 (2009) was good, while Vista (2006) and Windows 8 (2012) were bad.
 

GaryProtein

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Windows XP and Windows 7 were the two best WIN operating systems.

They were straightforward to use and very stable.

I hope they have another winner with Windows 9.
 

Johnny Vinyl

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Win 8 was too radical of a change, but it isn't "bad". Now Vista and Millenium were truly bad. Looking forward to what they bring to the table with Win 9.
 

Johnny Vinyl

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Windows XP and Windows 7 were the two best WIN operating systems.

They were straightforward to use and very stable.

I hope they have another winner with Windows 9.

I agree! :)
 

Habanero Monk

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Jul 12, 2014
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Microsoft simply didn't listen. Pure and simple. When seasoned users had to Google for something as simple as powering off or restarting their computer, well, you have a problem.

I was put off. I simply hit the CLI and used the shutdown command. It wasn't worth the effort to find it in the Win8 UI. They have restored the Start Button and even added a great feature where you right click the start button and everything is a click away. Now I LOVE that feature. What MS had before for desktop simply worked.

Phones are Phones, Tablets are Tablets, full function computers are full function computers. With the way people carry on you would think someone is going to type up their 300 page dissertation with thumbs on a 4.3" phone.
 
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Phelonious Ponk

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I don't know what they were thinking, building a a PC OS around a touch screen interface. You're sitting at your computer now, right? Reach out and touch the upper right corner of your screen. Hold your finger there while you finish reading this post. Vertical touch screens are an ergonomic nightmare. Are you still holding? What you're doing right now is relatively easy. Imagine operating a very mouse/touchpad intensive program this way. Still holding that finger up there? Getting tired yet? I mean it would definitely have fitness advantages...if you don't mind your right shoulder and neck muscles being much better developed than your left -- You're still holding, right? -- Now, if the whole world moved to laptops with those swivel screens that turned them into bulky tablets of sorts, this might work...still holding?...move your finger to the center and tap, wait 5 seconds to emulate re-configuring a laptop-tablet to laptop mode, type a few letters, wait 5 seconds to reconfigure it back to tablet mode. This is what you'd have to do to enter a password. How's that arm feeling about now? Neck muscles on your right side?

A PC OS designed around touch screen compatibility is dumb. And a perfect example of which, unfortunately, Microsoft has given us many, of a bunch of techies expecting the world to adapt to their neat idea instead of the other way around. Smart idiots. Technical expertise with no user awareness at all. I'd feel bad for them except that I think it is born of a subtle contempt for the customer.

Tim
 

GaryProtein

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^^^^ I had a big smile while reading your post!
 

audioguy

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Microsoft was the 800 pound Gorilla for so, so long they assumed that they could do anything they wanted - and the consumers would buy in. Apple, their only real competition, was too small for them to worry about so they thought they had the consumer exactly where they wanted them.

It sounds like the company ejected those with that mentality.

Windows XP was the most solid Windows OS I ever used with Windows 7 right behind it.
 

FrantzM

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Microsoft was the 800 pound Gorilla for so, so long they assumed that they could do anything they wanted - and the consumers would buy in. Apple, their only real competition, was too small for them to worry about so they thought they had the consumer exactly where they wanted them.

It sounds like the company ejected those with that mentality.

Windows XP was the most solid Windows OS I ever used with Windows 7 right behind it.

Well put.

The worst for us in the IT world is the way this Windows 8 thinking has permeated their business OS.Windows 2012 Server is a case in point . Basically the same UI as Windows 8... These OS have some extrordinary bad ergonomic features.. Like, having to go to "setting" to turn the computer Off...:confused: ...:rolleyes: Settings ?!?

There may exist some shortcuts ..Stilll..

A case of corporate lemming mentality.
 

Ronm1

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Well put.

These OS have some extrordinary bad ergonomic features.. Like, having to go to "setting" to turn the computer Off...:confused: ...:rolleyes: Settings ?!?
.
Seems reasonable as long as you can turn it on from 'Settings' ;-)
 
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hvbias

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Jun 22, 2012
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From speaking to a couple of friends that worked at MS (one recently part of the huge lay off), they said W8 had the best Windows engine in the companies history and was quite an upgrade from W7, but was obviously let down by its GUI.
 

DonH50

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My new notebook came with Win 8.0. I read the horror stories but also Win 8.1 was a free, simple upgrade and to do it as soon as I got the notebook and things wouild be much better. Three hellish days later I saw no difference except a new direct link to the start screen I never wanted in the first place and I still can't get a couple of applications to work (including the BD burner that I paid extra for). I gave up. And I work for a company that depends upon the computer business. Half the programs I use are practically unusable without spending a few hours Googling to see about a work-around. For example, the calculator is only available from the infamous start screen, and then is a full-screen application? So much for doing a quick calculation whilst working on something else. Yah, there's a work around, but if I wanted a tablet, I'd buy a tablet. Some programs run from the desktop, some from the start screen, and never the two shall meet (more Google to get apps to launch from the desktop, sometimes it works. Sometimes.) The whole interface I find a horrible experience. I seriously debated about loading one of the programs to emulate XP/Win7, or just going back to Win7, but decided to bite the bullet. Which is really a grenade. What a travesty. I use my new notebook a fraction of the time I had planned because it is just too ^%^%! painful. Programmers should be forced to bed at 7 pm and all Mountain Dew cut off after 5 pm, and they should be forced to actually talk to users before releasing a new OS that is a best-seller for migraine medicine. I am wondering if ANYBODY at MS actually spent some time without a touch screen.

I spent 40 minutes waiting on MS phone support to be told all that was included was installation support. For them to tell me how to configure the calculator to run from the desktop I would need to buy a technical support contract. I'm afraid I became somewhat unpleasant. I didn't even get to my real applications, the calculator fiasco was just a little warm-up.

Yah, I'm a little vexed. No smiley.

I really need to get a new desktop but will probably go DIY and install Win7 and stay there.
 

Bobvin

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I can live with certain things in a new OS, but Microsoft changed the way they rendered fonts on the screen. They started this with Internet Explorer version 10, where the fonts rendered on the web app were different from those rendered on the desktop. This drove me batty because I'm a big fan of seeing things clearly on the screen. They threw out support for a technology that was pretty strong, 'cleartype', so they could render fonts on any resolution screen. Targeted, I suppose, for cell phones and tablets. But their implementation was extremely weak, so I don't even use office 2013 because it no longer uses the system technology to render the fonts but instead tries to render fonts within the app.

Sadly, it seems Microsoft has moved away from trying to create an interface that is truly elegant and usable to one that is available on every freaking device made. A poor job doing so. I suppose the thinking was that consistency was superior to usability.
 

treitz3

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Dec 25, 2011
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We operate our business on W8. It has it's downsides but all in all, I have to say that it is nice to operate things from the phone, pick up where I left off on the tablet (which is basically a laptop the way we have it set up), then once again pick up where I left off on the desktop or back on the phone if necessary. No matter the device I am on, I can still do most any function required including remoting (is that even a word?) into my desktop from my phone.

But....and this is a big BUT.....I have a tech savvy guy who just so happens to be my business partner. Any issues I have, i just talk to him. Most issues are dealt with in a matter of minutes and most issues are because I haven't quite figured the system out yet. The more I learn, the more I use W8 instead of the W7. Still, at the end of the day it can be VERY frustrating at times. Especially when we were on the developers beta version.

BTW, holding down the back button will allow you to flip from the calculator back to where you were and vice-versa for up to 6 full view windows on the phone. ;) On the desktop, I have it on the lower bar. I just wish that you could open up multiple calculators like with W7 or XP. That would be a nice touch.

Tom
 

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