News Windows 8 launch date confirmed as 26th October

I am confused about one thing though. merchant account If they do not provide a browser with the operating system, how would you download another browser?

 

I use it for everything other than games. Love it.

I would contest most of this yes

And I would like to see some facts to back up the claim for getting better frame rates. Because that is a compelling reason to upgrade just for playing games.

 

Greetings!

Exactly. And the user has no choice on what UI to use.

 

It happens every single time when big changes occur. Windows 95 - everyone went crazy about the new start menu and the loss of program manager. Windows XP - everyone derided it as a bloated Fisher Price OS for the masses and vowed to stick with Windows 2000 forever. At the very least, I'd hold off judgement until Windows 8 goes RTM.

If you still hate it then, switch to OS X or Linux or stick with Windows 7. Use the OS that suits you best instead of complaining about it.

 

I'm not sure if it has eluded your attention, but most people do not complain about Windows 8. They complain about Metro. There's a *huge* difference...

 

Again: you have no vision.

It always surprises me how conservative this forum membership is. You're supposed to be geeks, ferchrissakes! But it seems to me that it is the mainstream muggles who willingly embrace new technology, and in doing so drive it forward. Whether it is smart phones, tablets or Windows 8; it's allways the same story: "My old Nokia does me just fine". "It's not a real computer, what's it for? My netbook works just fine". "Windows XP is fine for me". Nope, you'll happily drop £400,-- on a marginally faster GPU to play the same old remixed game with slightly prettier graphics, but God forbid someone out there actually introduces something new.

 

Greetings!

Not really.

Then, people tried the new Windows 95 Start Menu for an afternoon and they accepted it.

Then, people annoyed by the Luna Theme just changed for a more classic theme, no more Fisher-Pricey look.

With Windows 8 there is no fallback position, its the Microsoft way or other OS.
User choice is no longer present.

 

So we should just embrace the new even if its gives us no benefit...? No thank you.

 

I claim that not every change is beneficial or an advancement. But hey, let's make wheels square. Why? It's NEW! Only reason necessary.

And those "mainstream muggles" you talk about probably do not embrace new technology as willingly as you believe. It gets forced upon them. I have quite a lot of these socalled "mainstream muggles" and regularly tend to their computers and whatnot. Often when there's a major change in the way they have to do stuff I can hear a resigned "Oh well, if it has to be this way...".

 

I'm so comfortable with 7 I would need a good reason to move on (I.e. A new DX or big improvements to interface). To me the interface looks clunky and I'm struggling to find a reason to move on, slight improvements in performance are nice but not enough to convince me to move to teletubby hill

 

If you believe Windows 8 gives you *no* benefit, then he's right, you lack vision.

 

I use win7 for playing games. Thats it. Steam, Origin, browser and few other gaming related software packages are the only things I have installed. Unless the latter about increased frame rates in gaming is true then no it does not give me any benefits.

Oh and AVG.

 

Well it is a fact that Windows 8 uses a smaller memory footprint/resource allocation than Windows 7, so that's where the performance boost would come from.

 

That's just another way of saying: "The iPad? It's not a real computer. What's it for?"

Yeah, I frequently walk past the Apple shop as they drag in unsuspecting members of the public and force iPads and iPhones into their hands. Oh, the humanity!

Muggles vote with their wallet, like every other consumer. It's why Apple is doing do well, lately. It produces tech that is simple (and dare I say it, fun) to use by the mainstream user. When you tend to people's computers it's because they ran into a wall of user-unfriendly technical stuff that we enjoy, but other people just find a cumbersome hassle. They want simple. They want big friendly icons and simple dialogs spelling out simple options. Muggles will LOVE Windows 8.

 

Greetings!

Probably is.
Windows 8 has had some improvements under the hood. The part about forced Metro (Start Screen, Metro apps, charms) is what damages its reception.
A Windows 8 that allowed for UI user choice would have an enthusiastic recepetion everywhere and by everybody.

 

Wow!!!

I am actually finding I couldn't care less about Windows 8.

I always thought I would be an early adopter with all OS upgrades. But this time I don't care. I really don't.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here, join forces with Nexxo and suggest that Windows 8 will be a big hit, because it's pretty, very accessible and extremely well engineered. For the haters (geeks), there will be myriad customisation options anyway, some from MS and many 3rd party, so anyone suggesting that this will tank because they don't like Metro UI is talking poopie.

It's akin to saying "I don't want this Bentley because it has a bumper sticker on it".

It's easy to remove

Oh, and 95% of users will just leave it there and get used to it. Because 95% of users are "mainstream muggles", and they are the ones filling Microsoft's bank accounts, not us.

EDIT: I'm referring to the home market in this post.

 

Generally speaking MS care even less for Geeks than "Muggles" and they care very little for them. MS only produce a home OS so they can see volume licences to corporations who use windows at home where the purchasing manager is comfortable with it. Its all about the bulk windows licences so they can sell expensive bulk Office licences the rest is just window dressing.

 

Fair play. If there is gaming related performance boosts then I may well. It would just come down to whether I can be arsed spending £40 and learning that stupid new interface. I like the traditional start bar and interface. That why I use KDE for working.

 

No its not.

In my situation I don't see windows 8 giving me anything. Im not jumping on the windows 8 wagon till I can actually get some serious benefit. Smaller memory footprint? Does that really mater on a machine with 8GB+ of RAM? I wouldn't have thought so.

I don't want to stop technology moving forward. I just think win8 is not what I want or need. For somebody that spends little time on windows its not worth the upgrade.

And yes it probably will be a hit with its big flashy buttons but as you said above...

Windows 7 is fine for me


EDIT: Sorry for double post only seen the reply after.