Low purchase intent on Windows 8
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
I guess those who know Windows skip a generation, and so many went to Windows 7 that it might take till Windows 9 before Microsoft gets me to buy a new PC for a new operating system.
I bought Window 8 Pro, downloaded it for $39.00 on a Microsoft deal that runs through 1/31/13. Installed it on a desktop machine.
I also downloaded Classic Shell for free to get the start button back.
Set it up so it boots to the desktop, not the Metro interface, although I do play with the Metro screen at times. I am using a mouse and keyboard, no touchscreen.
I was hoping there were significant improvements to Media Player and Media Center (not included in Windows 8 but a free download through 1/31/13, too). I haven't seen any major changes and definitely wouldn't switch from J River.
The library manager for music in Media Player is still poor in my opinion. Identified 600 albums correctly but another 600 or so are still "unknown," to Media Player at least.
It does boot much faster and installed painlessly.
I will acknowledge that I am not a power user or PC guru by any stretch of the imagination.
I also downloaded Classic Shell for free to get the start button back.
Set it up so it boots to the desktop, not the Metro interface, although I do play with the Metro screen at times. I am using a mouse and keyboard, no touchscreen.
I was hoping there were significant improvements to Media Player and Media Center (not included in Windows 8 but a free download through 1/31/13, too). I haven't seen any major changes and definitely wouldn't switch from J River.
The library manager for music in Media Player is still poor in my opinion. Identified 600 albums correctly but another 600 or so are still "unknown," to Media Player at least.
It does boot much faster and installed painlessly.
I will acknowledge that I am not a power user or PC guru by any stretch of the imagination.
You can thank the executive management team of Windows, specifically the now departed Steven Sinofsky. I used to manage the media player team among others. Steven took over Windows in 2006/2007. I had my first 1:1 meeting with him. To thaw the ice I said, "would you like me to tell you what my group does?" His answer? "No. I don't own a radio or TV. I don't watch any movies or listen to music." Imagine having 1,000 people reporting to you working in that area and hearing that from your new boss! Needless to say, I moved out of the group quickly but had to leave the media player team in Windows. Windows 7 came with almost no improvements. And it is not surprising that Windows 8 has none either. There is a great team there that could do more. But it simply is not a priority.
The media center situation is even worse. They moved out of the Windows and put next to the media room team that did software for set-top boxes. One of Steven's rules were that if a group did not report to him, they could not put any code in windows! That group then started to languish once it lost its main driver (windows sales). Not surprising that is unbundled altogether. Longer term I suspect it will go away.
I had a strong suspicion Sinofsky was a bozo, and this solidifies it. Yeah, nobody wants to listen to music or watch movies on their Windows devices... Pretty "visionary" if you ask me... Not even Ballmer would've pulled stupidity like that, and he's a champion!
And Amir, I understand it was Sinofsky's idea to have the two Windows running side by side (Metro and the old), with 2 Control Panels, 2 IEs, etc.. ?
alexandre
I haven't looked at Windows 8 but shouldn't we give it some time .. New PC will be sold with W8 and there is an ecosystem developing. The OS seems to be good and will be ameliorated with time . That has been the way of M$oft for years. let's be honest the OS looks promising. I am not a Msoft fan but have recently become increasingly agnostic on the OS front .. Whatever works for a given purpose and with the Cloud taking much and more importance in a few years the notion of OS may be as passe as that of LP (sorry 
) as the Edison Cylinder ... Only the GUI may count in the future
) as the Edison Cylinder ... Only the GUI may count in the future
I am a MAC user at home, but my office software runs on Windows 7.
I have to say WIN 7 is the most stable operating system MS has produced since XP.
There isn't an ice cube's chance in hell I will change, notice I didn't say "upgrade" to Windows 8.
I have to say WIN 7 is the most stable operating system MS has produced since XP.
There isn't an ice cube's chance in hell I will change, notice I didn't say "upgrade" to Windows 8.
I have not kept up with the development process and strategy for Windows 8. All I can say is that I am surprised. The Microsoft that I left would never ever let you get away with that. Bill (Gates) as a minimum would have beat you into submission if half a dozen other people did not. I don't understand why they did not finish the metaphor. It is like it would have been that much work to write a new control panel for changing resolution and such to force people to use the old model. I also don't understand why there is not an equal citizen on the classic desktop side. Every corporate user wants that. When I was there, there was no way you could sacrifice the bread and butter corporate use for some consumer feature. To let the classic desktop get worse than it was in Windows 7 just doesn't make sense to me.
Mind you, there are some nice things there. For one, performance is amazing. With PC hardware being so much faster than typical tablet, things just fly even at higher resolutions. It simply is that you can't stay in that paradise for long. I was always a finger touch or two away from something that would show the cracks between the old and new interfaces. While I could find a way to get past it, I think most people would get stuck. Here is a great video that Chris Pirillo, a friend of Microsoft and someone I used for feedback while I was there on how we were doing put together that shows this problem:
If a friend of the company is able to find and be bothered by such things, I don't understand why others had not inside the company. I used to manage the usability team that tested everything to make sure it was easy to use, discover and competitive. I don't get the feeling that was done as much as they should have or problems like above would not be there.
This is a little off topic. In the past the Microsoft program I used the most was Internet Explorer. Never had any problem with it until I upgraded to IE 9. After the upgrade there seemed to be less features but most importantly the performance was horrible. I could not figure out how to go back to the older version if there was a way. The performance was so bad that it was like my internet speed was reduced by a factor of 10. So I decided to try out Google Chrome and I am glad I did. It has all the features I want and works very fast. Microsoft really dropped the ball on this. It does not inspire confidence in their new products.
Friend of mine just got a new PC with Win8 and hates it. Plus it won't work with any normal email client; reading some articles and forum posts about it, seems like they want all email to be web-based. That is a big problem for me...
If you found that video interesting, you will definitely get a kick out of this one:
I really, really can't understand how all of this was missed. Fortunately they can fix it. Hopefully with Steven out, that is what they are doing.... If Steven was there by the way, his edict would have been to wait 3 years for the next release....
It looks like Windows 8 has all the faults of Longhorn, only they had the sense to scrap that, except they came out with Vista instead.
I watched about 10 minutes of it and stopped. I think these guys were hellbound on trying to make it look bad. The vast majority of stuff they b*tched about won't ever be of concern to an everyday user.
Outlook, or Outlook Express, as an email client to download emails from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) no longer works. If you use Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, or other web-based email nothing changes. If, like me and many others, you use Outlook as an email client that downloads emails from your ISP (cable/satellite company like Comcast, ISP like Earthlink, etc.) to your computer (local storage), Windows 8 will not work. People are going ballastic over that...
Oh, ok...I understand. I don't use my ISP's email system and never have through the years. I can understand now why this would be an issue for many.
Similar threads
 | Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator |  | Ron Resnick Site Owner | Administrator |  | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |