[bochen280]

The Metro interface/GUI and Metro style apps (including Metro App Store) is really what seperates Windows 8 from Windows 7. Windows 8 Desktop mode and everything "under the hood" is remarkly similiar to Windows 7, and in that respect, very little has changed.

After playing around with Windows 8 for some time I realized that Windows 8 is entirely superfluous, redundant and reactionary. It is not revolutionary or even evolutionary. It is two major step backwards and the changes being shoved down our throats are entirely Microsoft's reaction to threats like Google, Amazon, Apple, etc and have nothing to do with true innovation for the end user.

These days if you are like most people regardless of the form factor of your computational device (desktop, laptop, netbook, tablet) you are spending most of your time on the internet or connected to some network. And more likely than not, after booting up your computer and getting into the operating system, you are probably also spending a majority of that time in a web browser window interaction with different sites, software as a service services, and also increasingly with baked in browser apps and utitlies such as in the Google Chrome web /app store. Back in the Firefox days we had the concept of browser "extensions" to expand the functionality of a web browser, but increasingly in modern browsers the app stores sport fully functional standalone programs that are socially connected through the internet and replace the operating system itself . Well not technicailly, but browsers are becoming like an operating system on top of the host operating system, and just like the job of any OS is to abstract away the underlying hardware, browsers abstract away the operating system so that chrome app works in Windows as well as it works on Linux or Mac, etc. Since browser apps are both hardware and operating system agnostic/independent, and Google now keeps track of everything across browsers in your Google account, increasingly this is weakening the Windows OS hegemony.

IE used to have 90% marketshare in its heyday. These days Chrome has surpassed both Firefox and IE in terms of browser usage marketshare and mindshare and has no signs of relenting anytime soon. Microsoft has tried to play catchup with the release of IE 9 but it is too little too late and not working. Its bing/yahoo search engine still is only making glacier inroads against Google in the search engine wars... Microsoft's two crown jewels and revenue cash cows (Windows and Office) are both being threatened on multiply fronts.

Microsoft's answer is Windows 8. And specifically the Metro interface and Metro style apps and Metro App store. While Metro can be used with keyboard and mouse, its true purpose and intent is geared towards TOUCH. In fact, Metro is synonymous with TOUCH. All smart phones, tablets, pads are touch sensitive with multitouch support. While it is certainty possible to use Metro with Touch on a desktop with monitor that supports this, there is no practical advantage to doing so. Nothing beats the productivity of mouse and keyboard with classic user interface on a large desktop form factor and display size.

Windows 8 is really an operating system with an identity crisis. It wants to play catch up to the mobile and tablet world, while also playing catch up to the "app store" concept/business model and catching up on the grounds it lost in the browser wars. But as it stands, Windows 8 is actually Windows 7 (in desktop mode) with an after-the-fact baked-in and layered-on Metro GUI that feels akin to an operating system on top of an operating system, i.e. a web browser!

In one fell swoop Microsoft has reversed 25+ years of PC tradition and eradicated the "start menu" and replaced it with what basically amounts to a modern web browser app store. The original purpose of the "start menu" was to categorize, organize and list the multitude of programs and applications that were installed on a user's system. New Microsoft has done a bait and switch and using the familiarity of the "start menu" to force users to be exposed to its "operating system within an operating system" the aka Metro App store. Since on boot-up the default screen is the Metro screen and even in Desktop mode users still have to frequently revert back to Metro interface to get work done or switch to different applications, etc what this really amounts to is Microsoft turning its back on the traditional "open" platform of the PC and using its PC marketshare hegemony to force users to adopt Microsoft's other wares like hotmail, skydrive, office 365, bing, IE10, etc etc etc... While Microsoft has backwards compatibility with "legacy" application support through what is known as "desktop mode"... what is really happening is Microsoft wants to position itself in a new software and computing paradigm where the operating system becomes the web browser (through the Metro interface, Metro style apps which are forced onto and inflicted upon the user via a trickery substitution replacement of the traditional "start menu" ) and where the operating system also serves the role of software delivery platform (cutting out retailer middleman like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Fry's Electronics that offer the "boxed" software and also cannibalization of digital retailers like Steam, Amazon, Google Play, that offer licensed downloads of third party software and content, etc) A lot of people buy software from Amazon.com or download applications or tools from download.com and a variety of different sources. With Windows 8 and Metro, Microsoft is in one fell swoop making the PC a closed platform and copying Apple (just like they did twenty years before with the DOS OS copying Apple's GUI interface) and trying to get some sloppy-seconds cheap-action by double-dipping -- offering a paid OS but with artificially hard-coded mobile/tablet restrictions and limitations. They are pushing METRO to the forefront and relegating "desktop mode" to some "legacy" world that they wish would die away and be forgotten... and all the while they will get a 30% cut of all metro apps, and be the gatekeeper of what you can and cannot install, run, do on your own computer, and make you pay for the privilege to "upgrade" to the newest and greatest: Windows 8. Right... Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can predict how this will turn out. This ain't 1995 nomo and Microsoft's monopolistic tactics doesn't work. Last time I checked Internet Explorer no longer had 90% of the marketshare, no not even close. lmao And seriously, those interested in tablets, smart phones, etc will get either iOS if they want quality and don't mind shelling out the big bucks for an overpriced luxury brand product, or side with the darkside of evil and cave to Google's Android and Chrome + Chromium OS universe ... And don't forget the Amazon kindle/fire..... Who the F*** needs Metro-sexual "Star Trek Original Series"-looking and "Windows 1.0"-reminiscing interface and app store?

Microsoft's hope is to get to the user before the browser does. Nowadays when a user boots up the PC, the first thing he usually does is fire up the web browser and check his social networking, email, and does his applications online or through apps downloaded via the browsers baked-in app store. The OS has been abstracted away and relegated to the position of hardware itself, basically becoming a mere commodity and an afterthought. People no longer pay that much attention to their underlying operating system because the browser has become the center of the internet and even computing universe. This is Microsoft's worse fear... but with Metro interface, once the PC boots up the user will be forced to encounter Microsoft's baked-in Metro App store and Microsoft's suite of its own apps like Mail (hotmail), Video (Windows Media Player), and in essence Microsoft is hoping that with Metro it will get to the user before the browser does. (before Google does) This is also why Windows Live, Hotmail, Skydrive etc will be an integral part of the Windows 8 experience... and you are basically coerced into signing up for, and using, a Windows online account. This is a battle between Microsoft hegemony and Google hegemony. With Windows 8 Microsoft is hoping that user will do everything in this "new start menu" and that the Metro interface will allow this new operating system to replace or at least compete with many of the extended features of modern browsers and reverse the trend of the "browser becoming the OS"... (by getting to the user with an OS baked-in "app store" before the actual browser can get a chance to do the same!)

Microsoft has so far failed to get into the mobile market, the tablet world and the "app store" game... (sidenote: funny how Google Android marketplace is now called "Google PLAY") so it is using the only weapon it has to force itself into the marketplace: by converting its PC operating system and transforming it into a mobile OS, a tablet OS, with a baked in App Store that we can't get rid of. And by doing so, by catering to the lowest common denominator, Microsoft is killing off the traditional PC ecosystem as we knew it to be, and these desperate tactics come from the expense of user productivity and efficiency. Instead of putting the end user interests first, this is bona fide case of Microsoft coming out with a new operating system in a very reactionary way to solve Microsoft's own failures and problems, totally irrespective and irregardless of what the end user actually wants or needs.

For various reasons I'm fully confident that Windows 8 will fail MORE miserably than Windows Vista + ME added together. In fact if it wasn't for ipv6, directx11, more efficient multiprocessor and multicore support, and 64-bit (XP has a 64bit version but its really not usable) support then I'd still be on Windows XP Professional with service pack 3. But as it stands, I predict that Windows 7 will see a longer longevity than even the very successful Windows XP. Corporate world is just now finishing transitioning from XP to Windows 7. They will not even look at Windows 8. Operating systems have basically matured, especially in the desktop and traditional pc world. We will never need anything more than ipv6 after transitioning from ipv4 (and even this will take probably 10-15 years!) and to transition from 32-bit OS and applications to 64-bit OS and applications will also be the last time we do this. Most graphical applications and pc games can't even take full advantage of directx10 (heck, a lot of new games don't even max out or take advantage of everything directx9 has to offer) and I really don't see any "killer games" or "killer 3d apps" on the horizon or even in the foreseeable future that will really necessitate or require anything more than directx11 in its current form. And so as for myself, I will personally be using Windows 7 until 2030. At which point I will re-evaluate and take a look at Windows 9/10 or maybe by that time Linux, Mac, whatever is better or best by then.

It is a sad sad world we live in where Microsoft has fallen so gracelessly from its one great heights. Windows 7 is dead. Long live Windows 7.



BTW. How is the "freemium" "DLC store" strategy working out for Microsoft FLIGHT (2012)? Pathetic. That is what happens when Microsoft turns its back on 25+ years of tradition and canned the Aces team, killed the Flight Simulator franchise (older than MS itself!) and then sold the FSX source code to Lockheed Martin (Prepar3d) just to make a quick buck, then try to monetize that code further by throwing a tiny bucket of money to a new dev team to develop FLIGHT (2012), when they quickly realized how expensive and time consuming it would be to make Orbx class scenery for the entire world they released a freemium (DEMO) with only the main island of Hawaii and a single Honda on Wings (Icon A5) and said this no-SDK, no-cockpit, no-ATC, no-AI, no-Traffic, no-FMC Flight arcade game was the wave of the future. They forgo releasing an SDK and kicked all the third party developers like PMDG out and pimped the Flight App Store as the way forward.... Well that move did nothing but solidify FSX as the platform for the next 10+ years. I can draw many parallels between the FSX-> FLIGHT and Windows XP/7 -> Windows 8. As I see it, regardless of whether or not the PC platform is dying, Windows 7 will be the last operating system on the PC for most people, especially those that know a thing or two about computers at all.

[vision-master]

Yeah.......but windows 8 supports Bluray.

[bochen280]

Yeah.......but windows 8 supports Bluray.

While ImgBurn is free. Blu-ray is good for storage archival of important data such as files, documents, family photos, recorded videos and such... but for watching movies Hollywood's own Ultraviolet initiative will soon obsolete the need for blu-ray, and don't forget about streaming and SSD.

Yeah....... and Windows 8 supports USB 3.0, too. Doesn't mean I have to switch to it since Windows 7 service pack 2 will most likely bring support of usb 3.0 natively as well, plus it takes like two minutes to download and install a usb 3.0 driver from the hardware manufacturer, most of them even supporting XP today. And to imply that Blu-ray doesn't work in Windows 7 or that there is no support for it is quite disingenuous. And to extend on that analogy, that's also like saying that Windows XP supports zipped/compressed files and Windows 98 doesn't. While technically true, anyone who really needs that feature would simply install WinZip, WinRAR, and/or 7zip (which by the way, all three third party tools work on Windows 98, XP and 7). I've never used the default compressor/encryption/burner/backup/etc abilities of Windows XP/7. No one who is serious about blu-ray will be using the Windows 8 defaults anyway. How difficult would it be to get a third party player? I don't see it was a compelling reason to switch to 8.

[Sixstrings]

IE used to have 90% marketshare in its heyday. These days Chrome has surpassed both Firefox and IE in terms of browser usage marketshare and mindshare and has no signs of relenting anytime soon. Microsoft has tried to play catchup with the release of IE 9 but it is too little too late and not working. Its bing/yahoo search engine still is only making glacier inroads against Google in the search engine wars... Microsoft's two crown jewels and revenue cash cows (Windows and Office) are both being threatened on multiply fronts.

So Chrome is #1 now? I've been using Chrome since day one. It's the best -- simple, no crap and bloat, by far fastest browser I've ever used.

I just loaded up IE just to look, it's been a while. Goodness that thing is slow and ugly. An inch of junk at the top of the screen, I count 27 buttons. Whereas Chrome has about a quarter inch at top with 6 small buttons.

[bochen280]

Chrome is either already #1 or very close to being #1. At current trends, if they hold, Chrome is probably going to be #1 regardless.

In IE10 with the Metro App version for Windows 8 the address bar is at the very bottom of the screen and there were a bunch of other nonsensical UI changes. And its still not half as fast or smooth as Chrome. Go figure.

[AgentR11]

Personally, I don't dislike Win8. I'd never spend money to upgrade a Win 7 machine to 8; but a Windows tablet, laptop, or desktop that came with Win 8 wouldn't bother me...

The tiles do work kinda neat as icons to mobile web application, with the metro browser, they have much more of an "app" feel as opposed to a "site" feel. Nothing worth spending extra money for though.

[bochen280]

Personally, I don't dislike Win8. I'd never spend money to upgrade a Win 7 machine to 8; but a Windows tablet, laptop, or desktop that came with Win 8 wouldn't bother me...

The tiles do work kinda neat as icons to mobile web application, with the metro browser, they have much more of an "app" feel as opposed to a "site" feel. Nothing worth spending extra money for though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co5syOega8k

The fundamental problem with Windows 8 is that it tries too hard to be everything to everyone and ends up being nothing to anyone. It is suffering from an existential identity crisis and feels like two completely disjointed and divergent operating systems forcibly mashed together. Like a high school science project gone horribly wrong. Microsoft can fix 90%+ of all the complaints about Windows 8 usability issues if it would just enable the ability for the user to easily switch back to full classic mode and completely turn off Metro (even in Windows 7 the end-user could turn off Aero, disable themes and revert back to a XP/Windows95/98 classic interface mode) The developer preview of Windows 8 had the ability to re-enable the classic start menu through a registry tweak, but still on each startup/boot the OS defaults back to Metro screen and the user has to enter desktop mode manually each time. This is something that I could maybe live with. But with the consumer preview it is made clear that there would be no way to disable Metro nor any way to enable classic. Microsoft has indirectly indicated this will be the final state of things at release. There are third party tools that can provide a quick hack and stop-gap workaround, but this is besides the point - plus these implementations aren't stable and hardly the ideal way to do things. If Microsoft made this one small change in attitude, implementation and policy, even I would be on board with Windows 8 - because despite the total catastrophe that is Metro, under the hood Windows 8 does indeed have many good incremental improvements over 7. But, I'm willing to bet that Microsoft won't implement this fix for precisely the exact same reason they aren't releasing a dual OS (desktop and mobile/tablet version of Windows in the first place. Care to guess? If Microsoft released a standalone mobile or touch/table version of Windows 8 it will most definitively flop and never sell... it wouldn't stand a snowballs change in h*ll against the Android and the iOS competitors. This is the only reason why Microsoft is packaging this into the desktop operating system (where they still have great influence) and forcing and deep-throating this down all the end-users, Microsoft can't complete in the mobile and tablet arena the fair and square way via innovation or early adoption so they have to resort to underhanded tactics such as making the desktop OS also serve as a mobile/tablet OS first and foremost, in a futile attempt to capture/retain both markets and have its cake and eat it too... this is pure fantasy, and a part of the "re-imagining" of Windows. This tying-in of the desktop OS to the mobile OS is Microsoft's solution to its inability to make inroads to the mobile/tablet market, but unfortunately it comes directly at the expense of its core target audience, the PC desktop end-users. This is a huge and totally unacceptable compromise for the desktop users to have to endure, despite Microsoft's rhetorical double-think verbiage of "no compromise". This shortsighted tactic and misguided initiative will backfire and I'm predicting the blowback from this will be the end of the consumer and corporate software OS aspect of Microsoft as we know it.

I have a 30" monitor and there is no way I'm going to upgrade to a touch monitor just to lean forward on my chair or get up every time just to touch the screen to navigate the GUI when I have a gaming mouse that is much more precise and accurate and faster. I do not want my dirty greasy fingerprints all over the monitor. I don't want to move my arms all over the screen, this ain't the LCARS interface and we aren't on a starship. Metro on desktop OS is about as great of an idea as using Kinect to fly a "cockpit-less" aircraft in FLIGHT 2012 by flapping my arms in front of the HDTV on xbox360 -- don't you laugh, sometimes reality is stranger than fiction!! This Metro bulls*t seriously looks exactly like a touch-screen cashier register you'd see at Wal-Mart. Nobody on the desktop computer that ever needs any amount of productivity done will ever want to use Metro. Anyone who denies this is either incompetent or lying. Its just ludicrous and retarded. Metro feels like a cross hybrid between a Fisher Price toy and a Sesame Street show. It seriously reminds me of Windows 1.0 and Star Trek the Original Series. After 15+ years of OS GUI design since Windows 95 and we've reverted back to THIS??!?!?!?!

If Microsoft doesn't make a plain and simple easy way to turn off Metro and enable classic start menu and GUI then Windows 8 will flop, no other way around it. Microsoft is making the riskiest bet it has ever made, and it is a bet they will lose very very hard. Metro on mobile and tablet is fine. Metro on netbook is "okay". Metro on laptops that don't have touch ability is a bad idea. Metro on desktop is pure stupidity. Metro on desktop will seriously cut your productivity in half. Regardless of whether or not you work in the "desktop mode" everything you do you constantly have to switch back and forth between what seems like two entirely different operating systems (Metro and Classic desktop) and it just FEELS like you are running two disparate OS simultaneously. This crap is not coherent, seamless nor harmonious at all! It is a patched up, piece-wise POS that will frustrate casual users and power users alike to no end. 15+ years of muscle memory and training with Windows will go down the drain and corporations in this Post Peak Oil world will not be able to afford employee retraining necessary to support Windows 8 deployment nor the lost in productivity and efficiencies. Grandpa will think his computer got infected by a virus that eradicated the start menu and give up after trying to find the shutdown button for half an hour. He'll wonder how to check his email when the address bar is missing from the top of his Internet explorer and can't figure out why all his applications seem to randomly disappear and reappear every now and then. If people thought Vista was bad, boy they ain't seen nothing yet.

Plain and simple, this policy is about locking in current PC users and forcing us to endure this Draconian Metro UI and Metro Start Screen and Metro style app all because Microsoft is playing catch-up in mobile and tablet arena. There is very little chance Microsoft will backtrack and listen to end-user concerns. Metro will be forced upon us desktop users and we won't have any reasonable /trivial way to turn it off. Everything across all of Microsoft's products are getting Metro-fied. Even Office 15 will have a Metro interface and Hotmail/Live will get a face-lift and start looking like Gene Roddenberry's 1964.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/08/micros ... d-newmail/

With this "bold" move, Microsoft is betting the entire company on "Metro". If it fails, and I'm betting it will, Microsoft will never fully recover. The upside is Windows 7 will probably live on for freaking ever due to the fact that 1) all the low hanging fruit is gone and desktop os technology has matured - after all you can only go from 32-bit to 64-bit once, ipv4 to ipv6 once, etc 2) sustained developer support after realizing metro app concept is a joke and no one want to jump on the low ROI bandwagon hype and 3) corporate adoption and usage and IT departments staying away from Windows 8 with a ten feet pole.

[AgentR11]

nobody on the desktop computer that ever needs any amount of productivity done will ever want to use Metro

But that's the catch isn't it.
Nobody on a desktop cpu has to touch metro more than once per restart. Set it up like a sign in entry page or something. The Win8 desktop portion is a cleaned up Win7 with a better task manager.

They log in.
They click the "Desktop" icon.
Poof, metro gone until restart.

People whining about the loss of the oh so important start menu... not impressed. There'll be 500 3rd party "start menu"s by release date, a few people will use them, most won't bother.

nb... don't take me for a MS fan boy, I'm typing this on a Slackware Linux machine, and feel absolutely no pressure to go with MS products over Open Source or other vendors. But, there is nothing particularly wrong win Win8; MS will sell millions of licenses, make a ton of money, and may (or may not) achieve some unity between tablet, xbox, and desktop cpu. If that's the definition of "failure"; I would love to fail like that over, and over, and over, and over.

[bochen280]

nb... don't take me for a MS fan boy, I'm typing this on a Slackware Linux machine, and feel absolutely no pressure to go with MS products over Open Source or other vendors. But, there is nothing particularly wrong win Win8; MS will sell millions of licenses, make a ton of money, and may (or may not) achieve some unity between tablet, xbox, and desktop cpu. If that's the definition of "failure"; I would love to fail like that over, and over, and over, and over.

Metro will fail in that it will never accomplish its main intended objective : capture a significant portion of mobile/tablet space
This is the catch-22. Developers don't want to create apps for a mobile/tablet OS that doesn't have respectable marketshare and mobile/tablet/casual users don't want to adopt a system/os that doesn't have a vibrant app ecosystem. With Android and iOS cutthroat competition Metro won't stand a chance.
Also, on the desktop side "legacy" developers have no motivation nor incentive to port or convert their existing applications into Metro apps, simply because 1) like I mentioned above, Metro ecosystem isn't going to take-off, 2) people aren't going to be rushing in masse to buy smart phones and tablets running Metro 3)and that would cannibalize their existing non-metro application sales (developers aren't stupid as Microsoft think) And even you admitted the vast majority of desktop users will simply turn to use Desktop Mode and won't bother much with Metro, that means there is no chance any (meaningful number of) legacy developer(s) is/are going to make native Metro apps going forward - simply the demand isn't there, the economics doesn't make sense and numbers don't work out.

Metro will end up a dead dying dry skeleton shell and husk. It won't succeed as a mobile/tablet OS and it WILL p*ss off a lot of desktop and power users ... who keep having to boot into an Metro screen that will by then no longer serve any purpose whatsoever. Maybe it is once per restart like you said, but do remember even to shutdown and restart the computer you still have to revert back to Metro interface in order to do that! And why would I want to use a third party tool to give me back the start menu and classic gui interface of Windows 7 in order to functionally use Windows 8 and bypass the Metro crap on my desktop computer when I could just continuing using Windows 7 itself for the far foreseeable future? Exactly.

If Windows 8 does sell, it will ONLY be because retailers will be forced to sell Windows 8 on NEW machines after Microsoft no longer provides OEM sales of Windows 7... and even in that case, even under best case scenarios, the sales of new units of desktop pc is going to be in decline. No one in their right mind will voluntarily buy/purchase an "upgrade" (downgrade) from Windows XP/Windows 7 to Windows 8 and the Metro crap. Who is going to pay to make their desktop monitor look like a scaled up smart phone? I can guarantee you in the corporate world companies won't even look at Windows 8, EVER. Anyway you slice it, this will not be Microsoft's finest hour.