Hate Eight thread

[mycroft]

There are companies I actively work with that are still using IE6 as company standard browser. Not many, but a lot. Many companies are just now moving to Windows 7, and are likely to skip 8. IE9 can be put on W7, and probably should (but yes, the same people that use IE rather than a real browser also won't upgrade IE).

 

People that decide that IE8- are no longer supported browsers are going to be seeing the hit for at least the next year or two, WinCE2.0 or no.

[Aberlour10]

Is Microsoft going to make a half backflip with The Windows Blue? from 8 to 7,5?

[onoway]

There was some suggestion on the news yesterday that Microsoft has had so many complaints and so much grief with windows 8 that they are going to ditch it. Don't know if they are going backwards or sideways but windows8 is being blamed for the dramatic decline in laptop and desktop sales since it was released.

 

My laptop keeps telling me every time I log in that I have to upgrade and so far I've said no without problems but hotmail or whatever they call it now is a bloody annoying and frustrating mess. I don't mind Skype but I resent being told I have to let them take over my email list and so forth so I won't do it. I've never understood why nobody in Microsoft seems to trial anything out with non geeks before they decide it's an improvement and try to force people to change. Every single hotmail "improved version" has made it worse and worse. Next computer I get I won't be using hotmail.

 

The only reason I haven't switched to Apple is that then I would have to use the web version of BBO and with all due respect to the people who think it's great (and there are many) I'd rather stick a fork in my eye.

[FM75]

There was some suggestion on the news yesterday that Microsoft has had so many complaints and so much grief with windows 8 that they are going to ditch it. Don't know if they are going backwards or sideways but windows8 is being blamed for the dramatic decline in laptop and desktop sales since it was released.

 

My laptop keeps telling me every time I log in that I have to upgrade and so far I've said no without problems but hotmail or whatever they call it now is a bloody annoying and frustrating mess. I don't mind Skype but I resent being told I have to let them take over my email list and so forth so I won't do it. I've never understood why nobody in Microsoft seems to trial anything out with non geeks before they decide it's an improvement and try to force people to change. Every single hotmail "improved version" has made it worse and worse. Next computer I get I won't be using hotmail.

 

The only reason I haven't switched to Apple is that then I would have to use the web version of BBO and with all due respect to the people who think it's great (and there are many) I'd rather stick a fork in my eye.

 

Or as was suggested by Mr Gitelman in another thread, that you are just so against change, you would not be willing to spend as much time learning an improved replacement as you spent learning the original.

Really strange reason to use for not switching operating systems and hardware. Stay away from iPads and smartphones. ;)

And chrome books which cost less than Microsoft's operating system! LOL.

[Antrax]

onoway, I've read somewhere they're killing Hotmail completely. Sorry.

(also, blaming the OS on declining PC sales is silly IMO)

[onoway]

Or as was suggested by Mr Gitelman in another thread, that you are just so against change, you would not be willing to spend as much time learning an improved replacement as you spent learning the original.

Really strange reason to use for not switching operating systems and hardware. Stay away from iPads and smartphones. ;)

And chrome books which cost less than Microsoft's operating system! LOL.

"Learning the original" was virtually instantaneous and over the years I have made several attempts to "learn to love" the new system with no success. I am much more flexible about trying things than most people but if after several attempts I still find it annoying and awkward then why should I waste my time with it when I could be doing something much more productive or pleasant? I play bridge for pleasure, not as a job, so I don't need to do it at all if the circumstances don't allow it to be a pleasurable experience.

 

I have no problem with other people preferring the new version, which I assume is most people although I know quite a few people who feel as I do about it. The topic rarely comes up. It is odd to me that people such as you who haven't even been involved with the process feel somehow justified in trying to mock me because I don't feel about it as you do. I have a great deal of respect for the work and effort which has gone into the web version but it simply doesn't suit me. What's it to you?

 

You make your decisions for your reasons and I make mine for my reasons. You obviously have different priorities. I won't presume to criticize your motivations and it would be nice to have the courtesy reciprocated.

[onoway]

onoway, I've read somewhere they're killing Hotmail completely. Sorry.

(also, blaming the OS on declining PC sales is silly IMO)

Yes, they already don't call it hotmail anymore, and apparently it's being turned over to Skype to run. I didn't make the call about declining sales, was just passing on that some business analyst did.

[WellSpyder]

(also, blaming the OS on declining PC sales is silly IMO)

I didn't read it that way. I thought they were blaming the OS for declining PC sales, not on declining PC sales.

[Antrax]

What's the difference?

[billw55]

I haven't used Win 8, but from what I read and talk to people about, the general gist is that the nuts and bolts are pretty good, at least as good as 7, but that the user interface stinks. So I don't think Microsoft needs to dump it entirely, just give it a new front end, and probably a new name to dissociate from 8. Maybe that is what Blue is? Anyway, I hope they realize that Blue is not a name that inspires confidence in a windows system.

 

I get what they were trying to do with 8. They want more share of the phone and tablet market, and their strategy was to convert their PC customers: get them using something that looks like a phone/tablet, they get used to it, then when they go shop for a phone/tablet, they will pick what is already familiar. The problem is that none of this considers their actual needs or preferences at all.

 

Some people seem to think that phones/tablets are the only future and eventually nothing else will exist. I think those people are mostly marketers for phones/tablets. For productivity, I don't see any substitute for a real keyboard and large screen, so that market is not going away IMO.

[WellSpyder]

I thought they were blaming the OS for declining PC sales, not on declining PC sales.

What's the difference?

Blaming the OS for declining PC sales implies that the OS is the cause and declining PC sales are the result. Perhaps fewer people are buying PCs because new PCs will by default come with an OS that they don't like.

 

Blaming the OS on declining PC sales implies that the declining sales are the cause and the OS the result. Perhaps Microsoft didn't bother to put enough effort into the OS because declining PC sales meant less revenue, or something?

 

The direction of causality in the first paragraph above seems a more plausible story to me, but in any case they are completely different stories.

[Antrax]

Thanks, I meant "for" and I still think it's silly :)

[mycroft]

trying to treat everything as a tablet so that it's easy to use across all your hardware (provided you stick to microsoft-run hardware, hint hint) given that they are seeing the decline in "peecees" in favour of smartphones and tablets isn't really a bad idea.

 

Smearing 12 big blocks of text across double 1900x1400 screens is less helpful than across 7 inches of tablet, however. Gorillaarm is a real thing - especially to the computer workers who try to avoid the mouse as it is.

 

That, combined with Microsoft's famous "thou shalt do things the Microsoft Way because it's right" motto around designing interfaces, and their famous intrangisence in absolutely removing the "old way" when the "new way" comes in, leads to HateEight.

 

They want to train the customer to work the way they want them to work so that they can sell them a smartphone that works the same way and a Surface that works the same way. They've had 30 years of succeeding with this, with occasional fails that ended up being okay (the first real pushback was Office97, when they "changed everything again" and businesses remembered how much it cost to retrain everyone (usually the lower-paid people that actually typed things) when Office95 came out. Bet you have no idea how to use Office97, now that the Ribbon world is the new normal). Why should they change now?

 

I will note that my current operating system has gone the whole "icons, tablet, one UI to rule them all" thing, too, with Unity. There is a saying in the system administration world that user starts with a silent 'l'. So does Unity. The only difference is I can say GFY, Canonical, I'm moving to XFCE.

 

I will also note that I am one of the few people in the world that doesn't understand icons, and now that I have a new tablet (not running MS anything), and using the BridgeBase App, I have No Freaking Clue what any of the buttons do. "but it's so intuitive". Yeah, for you neurotypical freaks. (Please note, it works very well, and it is by far not the worst for "images that you're just supposed to understand" on this beast).

[Finch]

There are companies I actively work with that are still using IE6 as company standard browser. Not many, but a lot. Many companies are just now moving to Windows 7, and are likely to skip 8. IE9 can be put on W7, and probably should (but yes, the same people that use IE rather than a real browser also won't upgrade IE).

 

People that decide that IE8- are no longer supported browsers are going to be seeing the hit for at least the next year or two, WinCE2.0 or no.

 

7? I'm on Vista at work and imagine I will be for quite a while.

I'm not sure what version of IE we're on (although it was upgraded quite recently) but bridgewinners complains that it's out of date and won't let me read it. Probably a good thing overall.

[mycroft]

Ah, I'm sorry Frances. Most of the people moving to Windows 7 skipped Windows 6--, I mean Vista. Microsoft has much of the Star Trek Movie Franchise in it...

[billw55]

I don't think Vista was as bad as all that. 7 is better, but Vista was not really the disaster that some people make it out to be. Windows ME is still the benchmark for disaster as far as I know.

 

Perhaps MS is smarter than we think. Perhaps they know that the new OS will always be criticized, and plan for the "replacements" that make it all better. Could it all be part of their development cycle?

[blackshoe]

Windows ME is still the benchmark for disaster as far as I know.

"Have you ever seen Windows 1.0?" —— The CPO from whom I took over the "IT department," such as it was, at Fleet Training Group San Diego in the mid 1980s, when I asked him why 45 boxes of Windows 1.0 software were sitting in the closet instead of installed on our computers. As I recall it took about eight minutes just to load the software, and speed after it was loaded wasn't any better.

[mycroft]

Ah, but have you seen Windows 1.0 running on a Core2? (Well, I think the video I saw was Windows 3.1, but still).

[blackshoe]

Ah, but have you seen Windows 1.0 running on a Core2? (Well, I think the video I saw was Windows 3.1, but still).

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[helene_t]

This Guardian article reminded me of this thread: David Cameron can't help the NO campaign because he is less popular in Scotland than Windows 8:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/08/scottish-independence-david-cameron-no-campaign-windows-8

[mike777]

But he could help the Yes campaign.

 

He can be a positive if he wishes so.

[Aberlour10]

Windows 10 comes in sight, no "9" in the tube, WHY? What is your conspiracy theory?B-)

[Vampyr]

Where is 325 when you need a conspiracy theory?