12 ms·

Windows 8 Available in October

46 points by derpenxyne 14y ago

coderdude 14y ago
Although I have a Windows 7 machine sitting next to me, and while I consider Ubuntu to be my primary operating system, I still use XP for much of my work. XP will for a very long time be the OS I most feel at home with. My comfort zone. It reminds me of back in the day when I was clinging onto Windows 3.11 for dear life -- never wanting to upgrade to Windows 95. Memories.
- CodeCube 14y ago
  I've never understood this mindset (though I completely respect your right to have it). Whenever a new version of the OS, or IDE, or whatever tool I'm using comes out, I tend to try to upgrade as soon as possible. For me it's about finding new ways to optimize my workflow. There are almost always improvements to the usability of the product, and once I get used to them I generally feel happy about it ... I'm always trying to find a new comfort zone :)
  - coderdude 14y ago
    Some of it is plain-old resistance to change. Much of it has to due with a loss of productivity for a period of time while I get used to what has changed. Sometimes the latest version of my favorite editor contains some change to the UI that I wish had never been made. I always fear there will be a change like when Microsoft switched Office to 'ribbon' toolbars. I completely gave up mastering new versions of Office after that. They threw away years of learning. I still use Ubuntu 9.x partly because I'm not stoked about the new window manager. Though I'm going to install it anyway because in Ubuntu terms I'm ancient by now and apt-get has become pretty much useless at this point.
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      > I completely gave up mastering new versions of Office after that. They threw away years of learning. If you'd stuck with it for even just a couple of months, you'd have rapidly realized that the ribbon UI was much more efficient than the old, menu-based UI. I hated the ribbon UI at first too, but now I don't have any problems with it.
      - freehunter 14y ago
        I love the new Office ribbon, but I always end up using it on underpowered machines and it takes forever to switch between menus on the ribbon. On my desktop, it's wonderful. On my netbook or work laptop, it's a horror.
      - coderdude 14y ago
        YMMV. I used it every day at work for years. I never got used to it, never fell in love with it.
  - nobleach 14y ago
    Well in some cases. We become extremely proficient using a particular tool. I'll admit, the more time I've spent away from using MS Windows, I've really begun to suck when relatives call for support. I have one Windows 7 machine in the house now and I wanted to map a network drive to a share on the Mac. After fighting through all the wonderful wizards in the network control panel, I still could not browse the network. Finally I just said SCREW THIS CRAP. Start->Run->cmd..... net use m: \\server\share /persistent:yes Screw you Microsoft for making a mundane task so damn difficult....
- rlu 14y ago
  I find it ridiculous to use an OS that is almost 12 years old but to each their own I guess.
  - 5hoom 14y ago
    While I agree that there is less and less reason to use XP these days, age alone is a pretty terrible way to judge the merits of an OS. How old is Linux now?
    - cleverjake 14y ago
      apple and oranges, mate. linux is not a monolithic release like windows XP. its thousands upon thousands of individual programs pulled together ad hoc and at will. My kernel is less than a few hours old, but my version of some software is 7-8 years old.
    - artmageddon 14y ago
      XP is receiving less and less support, and the time for when it will stop being supported altogether is coming up fast. Linux on the other hand is being continuously worked on. A more fair comparison would be to ask if he was still using the same distro without doing any updates from the same time the last update to Windows XP was released(which still isn't even fair because it assumes that the updates solve the exact same thing, which they are clearly not).
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    Well... The OS I'm using right now traces its roots to the late 60s and early 70s. I use the terminal a lot and that's an interface that was designed for teletypes. My favorite editor, Emacs, is similarly old. Yet, those metaphors are profoundly powerful and enable me to just forget I'm using a computer and focus on my work, which is, to borrow from Google, to teach computers do amazing things. I find using a GUI ridiculous most of the time, but, like you said, to each its own ;-)
- dr42 14y ago
  Assuming you're a developer, why would you have clung to 3.1? NT was available then and was considerably better operating system for development. I maintain an XP partition for when the corp I work for require mandatory training (ethics, insider trading, workplace safety etc) but there's no way I'd ever consider using it over Ubuntu for development. I suppose if you're coding in python then the underlying os makes little difference, the abstraction level is so high. Personally even in python missing the unix toolset is a primary reason to stick to unix-like operating systems. I couldn't imagine not having sed, awk, grep, vim, wc etc. I am aware of ports and even the Cygwin environment, but it's just a lot easier to skip the whole thing. Speaking as someone who started his career on hp-ux and since then included probably every major unix distribution both proprietary and open source, having an intimate knowledge of unix has served me well. Windows has finally caught up and (despite still getting the path delimiter wrong) is now a robust and usable operating system. The two worlds have merged, unix added curses, then x, and now looks as pretty as anything else out there, meanwhile windows added multitasking (yield didn't count) and ever wider addressing, a native tcp/ip stack, support for larger drives and so on. Unlike you I have no good memories of windows 3.11
  - coderdude 14y ago
    I wasn't a developer back then. I don't think I started programming until I hit Windows 98 (I was 12 in '98). I prefer developing under Ubuntu. It's a vastly superior environment for most kinds of programming work (a notable exception being game development). IMO Windows is better for web development and that's what I've been working on the most lately so I spend more time in XP for that. Windows 3.11 wasn't a good OS -- I just have happy memories of it because it was what I used when computing was mostly new and unexplored territory for me. That and my only prior experience was DOS.
  - jl6 14y ago
    Doesn't Windows accept forward slashes in most situations?
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    > yield didn't count Interestingly enough, I've been using yield in Python for what could be described as cooperative multitasking. Works very well with web workloads, btw.
- Argorak 14y ago
  Being a Mac user myself (now), I enjoy windows XP every time i have to use it. On todays machines, its just snappy as and has a certain bare-bones feel to it. I love that. Then again, I hate configuring XP, it is a horror.
  - nobleach 14y ago
    True. Using XP on a machine from today is actually not so bad. You can fly around the interface with ease. Flashback to 2003: Dell ships their Precision/Optiplex towers with a base level of 256Megs of RAM. XP will install... but you're going to WAIT if you do something crazy.... like hit the Start button.... And you'd better leave that PC running, cause you do NOT want to have to reboot and wait for the systray to load. God forbid you have Mcaffee or Norton installed....
- simonsarris 14y ago
  I avoided vista for similar reasons of not wanting to be alienated, but when I installed the win 7 beta I loved it instantly. The most visible feature: No more ridiculous searching through the start bar. Everything was just windows-key + some string + enter windows-key "sub" enter = sublime text is opened windows-key "ch" enter = chrome is opened windows-key "control" enter = control panel is opened Going back to windows XP after using Windows 7 was a nightmare. It felt so unusable.
  - ConstantineXVI 14y ago
    Should point out that the Win8 start screen still has the behavior, even though the search bar isn't visible at first.
    - jasomill 14y ago
      One change is that it groups results. In particular, hit Windows-W if you're specifically searching for a setting.
- danieldk 14y ago
  Seriously? Windows 3.11 was a horror compared to OS/2, which had proper multitasking, memory protection, and could even run DOS and Windows as a program for compatibility. But then, OS/2 was a horror compared to Windows NT 4.0 ;).
  - yuhong 14y ago
    Ah, the entire MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco, which I have written about in comments many times, including for example on os2museum.com. Why did it take ten years after Intel introduced the 386 before 32-bit programming became popular?
robert_nsu 14y ago
So this means I can get my hands on Windows 8 in August. However, the more pressing matter is when I can get my hands on a Surface tablet.
bsphil 14y ago
Hope that they're still keeping the Win 8 Pro upgrade deal available until the end of Jan 2013.
mariusmg 14y ago
Been using Win 8 as my main OS (because i'm developing a WinRT app) for about 4 months now and it's great. Eagerly awaiting the RTM build.
danieldk 14y ago
I have been using the Windows 8 beta on my secondary machine for some weeks. Initially, I was really a fan of metro, but in the end the context switching that a single-task environment requires (yes, I know, you can split the screen) is annoying when doing serious work on a desktop. Taking aside Metro, Windows 8 is really an incremental upgrade for regular desktop use. I do believe Metro is great for tablets. As a five-year long OS X user (and Linux before), I'd seriously consider buying a Surface tablet if they nail things right: I'd like to be able to use it like an iPad on the road, connect it to a screen and Bluetooth mouse/keyboard at home/work to use it as a traditional desktop. We will see ;).
- barkingtoad 14y ago
  Agreed. Also I think a big chunk of the regular desktop users out there are going to be nothing but annoyed at the interface, and will do what they can to avoid Metro. It's been what, 17 years of clicking on "start" (or equivalent) and picking from a list. A lot of office workers are going to be horrified when they realize that doesn't work now.
  - Mythbusters 14y ago
    the start button is still available but its on the left side now (or on the keyboard where it has always been) The only difference I see as a desktop user is a startling experience where the new "start menu" takes up my whole screen instead of taking lower left corner. Other than that there is nothing that really annoyed me to the extent of being horrified. What particularly you think that is horrifying?
    - freehunter 14y ago
      If they merely renamed "Start" to "Menu", there'd be a mass of horrified users. Both power users and casual users hate change, as evidenced by the amount of both groups still using Windows XP and refusing to upgrade.
- goggles99 14y ago
  An incremental upgrade? I have not been keeping exact count, but from what I have read on the engineers blogs, articles and MSDN - This release exceeds any past windows release for the mere number of major and minor changes to the UI and Core OS. If you want to call it incremental fine (it is version 8 after all) but the way you say that is a bit misleading. you makes it sound minor. Perhaps many of the changes you are not aware of because you are a surface user.
at-fates-hands 14y ago
I've been using Windows 8 recently and have found no discernible increase in my work flow. It looks nice and I get comments on it, but I've found using an app launcher like executor or launchy has all but diminished the usefulness of Win 8. Of course this is just on my desktop, and will wait to see how the Surface tablet pans out. Full disclosure: I've grown to like the metro interface on my WIN7 phone.
- nobleach 14y ago
  Yeah, I've played with the Dev Preview. It wasn't horrible. Although, I embarrassingly admit, I had NO idea how to 'close' IE after I opened it. I'm a huge Linux fan, and I use a Mac at home. But much of the development I do at work is Windows only and I really don't hate "The Squares". I love the look of the newer WPF applications. Git for Windows is a perfect example. Now not everything should go this route. But I'm just not willing to jump on the "MS has crapified everything" bandwagon. I'll be interested to see the general acceptance factor in all of this.
jobu 14y ago
Has there been any info/rumors on the release date for Windows Phone 8?
- freehunter 14y ago
  Microsoft has said WP8 will be released around W8, which places it this fall. HTC has said their first W8 phones will land in October. http://www.slashgear.com/htcs-windows-phone-8-lineup-detailed-21235125/ http://www.slashgear.com/htcs-windows-phone-8-lineup-detaile...
mgkimsal 14y ago
Been using win8 in a VM for testing and ... it's fine. I'd like to be able to pay for it, and the 'upgrade price is $40' is a nice step, but really... I'd just like to be able to pay $40 for it full stop. I'm not 'upgrading' from anything, and this will mean I've got to shell out $200+ for it if I want to use it legally. I do have an old vista ultimate license, but I don't have it installed and probably won't install it again because I moved VM too many times and the process for reactivation was annoying. Maybe I'll have to suck it up again? Given that most people just get Windows installed on a machine, and the mfg aren't paying more than $50 per license, why can't we have lower retail prices? $50 for a copy of Windows - I'd have no incentive to pirate. $200+... ?? Will I be able to upgrade to Win8 with a Vista license key? Does anyone know for sure?
- freehunter 14y ago
  >Will I be able to upgrade to Win8 with a Vista license key? Does anyone know for sure? Yes. Microsoft has said any version of XP, Vista, 7, or 8 will get the $40 upgrade.
- chime 14y ago
  If the retail is $200, then manufacturers will pay $50. If the retail is $50, no manufacturer will pay even $25. Same applies to volume discounts though Open and VLSC. The retail price is the anchor.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    You talk like OEMs could buy their Windows licenses in a competitive market. They'll pay whatever price Microsoft demands. Its not like they have much choice. And, in terms of ARM-based machines, not even end users will have that choice.
    - bad_user 14y ago
      On the other hand OEMs have an incentive to not sell machines without an OS installed. Some OEMs, like Asus, are selling such PCs, preloaded with FreeDOS, or some Linux distro. Selling PCs with Windows bundled for a price that's lower than a retail license, well, that's a good deal for customers. Take that advantage away and you'll see many more PCs sold without a bundled Windows. And I think that would be bad for Microsoft, because it would put the choice in front of their customers, and that would be unfortunate as most customers aren't even aware of what Windows is or about the existence of other choices.

46 points by derpenxyne 14y ago

Although I have a Windows 7 machine sitting next to me, and while I consider Ubuntu to be my primary operating system, I still use XP for much of my work. XP will for a very long time be the OS I most feel at home with. My comfort zone. It reminds me of back in the day when I was clinging onto Windows 3.11 for dear life -- never wanting to upgrade to Windows 95. Memories.

CodeCube 14y ago
I've never understood this mindset (though I completely respect your right to have it). Whenever a new version of the OS, or IDE, or whatever tool I'm using comes out, I tend to try to upgrade as soon as possible. For me it's about finding new ways to optimize my workflow. There are almost always improvements to the usability of the product, and once I get used to them I generally feel happy about it ... I'm always trying to find a new comfort zone :)
- coderdude 14y ago
  Some of it is plain-old resistance to change. Much of it has to due with a loss of productivity for a period of time while I get used to what has changed. Sometimes the latest version of my favorite editor contains some change to the UI that I wish had never been made. I always fear there will be a change like when Microsoft switched Office to 'ribbon' toolbars. I completely gave up mastering new versions of Office after that. They threw away years of learning. I still use Ubuntu 9.x partly because I'm not stoked about the new window manager. Though I'm going to install it anyway because in Ubuntu terms I'm ancient by now and apt-get has become pretty much useless at this point.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    > I completely gave up mastering new versions of Office after that. They threw away years of learning. If you'd stuck with it for even just a couple of months, you'd have rapidly realized that the ribbon UI was much more efficient than the old, menu-based UI. I hated the ribbon UI at first too, but now I don't have any problems with it.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      I love the new Office ribbon, but I always end up using it on underpowered machines and it takes forever to switch between menus on the ribbon. On my desktop, it's wonderful. On my netbook or work laptop, it's a horror.
    - coderdude 14y ago
      YMMV. I used it every day at work for years. I never got used to it, never fell in love with it.
- nobleach 14y ago
  Well in some cases. We become extremely proficient using a particular tool. I'll admit, the more time I've spent away from using MS Windows, I've really begun to suck when relatives call for support. I have one Windows 7 machine in the house now and I wanted to map a network drive to a share on the Mac. After fighting through all the wonderful wizards in the network control panel, I still could not browse the network. Finally I just said SCREW THIS CRAP. Start->Run->cmd..... net use m: \\server\share /persistent:yes Screw you Microsoft for making a mundane task so damn difficult....
rlu 14y ago
I find it ridiculous to use an OS that is almost 12 years old but to each their own I guess.
- 5hoom 14y ago
  While I agree that there is less and less reason to use XP these days, age alone is a pretty terrible way to judge the merits of an OS. How old is Linux now?
  - cleverjake 14y ago
    apple and oranges, mate. linux is not a monolithic release like windows XP. its thousands upon thousands of individual programs pulled together ad hoc and at will. My kernel is less than a few hours old, but my version of some software is 7-8 years old.
  - artmageddon 14y ago
    XP is receiving less and less support, and the time for when it will stop being supported altogether is coming up fast. Linux on the other hand is being continuously worked on. A more fair comparison would be to ask if he was still using the same distro without doing any updates from the same time the last update to Windows XP was released(which still isn't even fair because it assumes that the updates solve the exact same thing, which they are clearly not).
- rbanffy 14y ago
  Well... The OS I'm using right now traces its roots to the late 60s and early 70s. I use the terminal a lot and that's an interface that was designed for teletypes. My favorite editor, Emacs, is similarly old. Yet, those metaphors are profoundly powerful and enable me to just forget I'm using a computer and focus on my work, which is, to borrow from Google, to teach computers do amazing things. I find using a GUI ridiculous most of the time, but, like you said, to each its own ;-)
dr42 14y ago
Assuming you're a developer, why would you have clung to 3.1? NT was available then and was considerably better operating system for development. I maintain an XP partition for when the corp I work for require mandatory training (ethics, insider trading, workplace safety etc) but there's no way I'd ever consider using it over Ubuntu for development. I suppose if you're coding in python then the underlying os makes little difference, the abstraction level is so high. Personally even in python missing the unix toolset is a primary reason to stick to unix-like operating systems. I couldn't imagine not having sed, awk, grep, vim, wc etc. I am aware of ports and even the Cygwin environment, but it's just a lot easier to skip the whole thing. Speaking as someone who started his career on hp-ux and since then included probably every major unix distribution both proprietary and open source, having an intimate knowledge of unix has served me well. Windows has finally caught up and (despite still getting the path delimiter wrong) is now a robust and usable operating system. The two worlds have merged, unix added curses, then x, and now looks as pretty as anything else out there, meanwhile windows added multitasking (yield didn't count) and ever wider addressing, a native tcp/ip stack, support for larger drives and so on. Unlike you I have no good memories of windows 3.11
- coderdude 14y ago
  I wasn't a developer back then. I don't think I started programming until I hit Windows 98 (I was 12 in '98). I prefer developing under Ubuntu. It's a vastly superior environment for most kinds of programming work (a notable exception being game development). IMO Windows is better for web development and that's what I've been working on the most lately so I spend more time in XP for that. Windows 3.11 wasn't a good OS -- I just have happy memories of it because it was what I used when computing was mostly new and unexplored territory for me. That and my only prior experience was DOS.
- jl6 14y ago
  Doesn't Windows accept forward slashes in most situations?
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > yield didn't count Interestingly enough, I've been using yield in Python for what could be described as cooperative multitasking. Works very well with web workloads, btw.
Argorak 14y ago
Being a Mac user myself (now), I enjoy windows XP every time i have to use it. On todays machines, its just snappy as and has a certain bare-bones feel to it. I love that. Then again, I hate configuring XP, it is a horror.
- nobleach 14y ago
  True. Using XP on a machine from today is actually not so bad. You can fly around the interface with ease. Flashback to 2003: Dell ships their Precision/Optiplex towers with a base level of 256Megs of RAM. XP will install... but you're going to WAIT if you do something crazy.... like hit the Start button.... And you'd better leave that PC running, cause you do NOT want to have to reboot and wait for the systray to load. God forbid you have Mcaffee or Norton installed....
simonsarris 14y ago
I avoided vista for similar reasons of not wanting to be alienated, but when I installed the win 7 beta I loved it instantly. The most visible feature: No more ridiculous searching through the start bar. Everything was just windows-key + some string + enter windows-key "sub" enter = sublime text is opened windows-key "ch" enter = chrome is opened windows-key "control" enter = control panel is opened Going back to windows XP after using Windows 7 was a nightmare. It felt so unusable.
- ConstantineXVI 14y ago
  Should point out that the Win8 start screen still has the behavior, even though the search bar isn't visible at first.
  - jasomill 14y ago
    One change is that it groups results. In particular, hit Windows-W if you're specifically searching for a setting.
danieldk 14y ago
Seriously? Windows 3.11 was a horror compared to OS/2, which had proper multitasking, memory protection, and could even run DOS and Windows as a program for compatibility. But then, OS/2 was a horror compared to Windows NT 4.0 ;).
- yuhong 14y ago
  Ah, the entire MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco, which I have written about in comments many times, including for example on os2museum.com. Why did it take ten years after Intel introduced the 386 before 32-bit programming became popular?

robert_nsu 14y ago

So this means I can get my hands on Windows 8 in August. However, the more pressing matter is when I can get my hands on a Surface tablet.

bsphil 14y ago

Hope that they're still keeping the Win 8 Pro upgrade deal available until the end of Jan 2013.

mariusmg 14y ago

Been using Win 8 as my main OS (because i'm developing a WinRT app) for about 4 months now and it's great. Eagerly awaiting the RTM build.

danieldk 14y ago

I have been using the Windows 8 beta on my secondary machine for some weeks. Initially, I was really a fan of metro, but in the end the context switching that a single-task environment requires (yes, I know, you can split the screen) is annoying when doing serious work on a desktop. Taking aside Metro, Windows 8 is really an incremental upgrade for regular desktop use. I do believe Metro is great for tablets. As a five-year long OS X user (and Linux before), I'd seriously consider buying a Surface tablet if they nail things right: I'd like to be able to use it like an iPad on the road, connect it to a screen and Bluetooth mouse/keyboard at home/work to use it as a traditional desktop. We will see ;).

barkingtoad 14y ago
Agreed. Also I think a big chunk of the regular desktop users out there are going to be nothing but annoyed at the interface, and will do what they can to avoid Metro. It's been what, 17 years of clicking on "start" (or equivalent) and picking from a list. A lot of office workers are going to be horrified when they realize that doesn't work now.
- Mythbusters 14y ago
  the start button is still available but its on the left side now (or on the keyboard where it has always been) The only difference I see as a desktop user is a startling experience where the new "start menu" takes up my whole screen instead of taking lower left corner. Other than that there is nothing that really annoyed me to the extent of being horrified. What particularly you think that is horrifying?
  - freehunter 14y ago
    If they merely renamed "Start" to "Menu", there'd be a mass of horrified users. Both power users and casual users hate change, as evidenced by the amount of both groups still using Windows XP and refusing to upgrade.
goggles99 14y ago
An incremental upgrade? I have not been keeping exact count, but from what I have read on the engineers blogs, articles and MSDN - This release exceeds any past windows release for the mere number of major and minor changes to the UI and Core OS. If you want to call it incremental fine (it is version 8 after all) but the way you say that is a bit misleading. you makes it sound minor. Perhaps many of the changes you are not aware of because you are a surface user.

at-fates-hands 14y ago

I've been using Windows 8 recently and have found no discernible increase in my work flow. It looks nice and I get comments on it, but I've found using an app launcher like executor or launchy has all but diminished the usefulness of Win 8. Of course this is just on my desktop, and will wait to see how the Surface tablet pans out. Full disclosure: I've grown to like the metro interface on my WIN7 phone.

nobleach 14y ago
Yeah, I've played with the Dev Preview. It wasn't horrible. Although, I embarrassingly admit, I had NO idea how to 'close' IE after I opened it. I'm a huge Linux fan, and I use a Mac at home. But much of the development I do at work is Windows only and I really don't hate "The Squares". I love the look of the newer WPF applications. Git for Windows is a perfect example. Now not everything should go this route. But I'm just not willing to jump on the "MS has crapified everything" bandwagon. I'll be interested to see the general acceptance factor in all of this.

jobu 14y ago

Has there been any info/rumors on the release date for Windows Phone 8?

freehunter 14y ago
Microsoft has said WP8 will be released around W8, which places it this fall. HTC has said their first W8 phones will land in October. http://www.slashgear.com/htcs-windows-phone-8-lineup-detailed-21235125/ http://www.slashgear.com/htcs-windows-phone-8-lineup-detaile...

mgkimsal 14y ago

Been using win8 in a VM for testing and ... it's fine. I'd like to be able to pay for it, and the 'upgrade price is $40' is a nice step, but really... I'd just like to be able to pay $40 for it full stop. I'm not 'upgrading' from anything, and this will mean I've got to shell out $200+ for it if I want to use it legally. I do have an old vista ultimate license, but I don't have it installed and probably won't install it again because I moved VM too many times and the process for reactivation was annoying. Maybe I'll have to suck it up again? Given that most people just get Windows installed on a machine, and the mfg aren't paying more than $50 per license, why can't we have lower retail prices? $50 for a copy of Windows - I'd have no incentive to pirate. $200+... ?? Will I be able to upgrade to Win8 with a Vista license key? Does anyone know for sure?

freehunter 14y ago
>Will I be able to upgrade to Win8 with a Vista license key? Does anyone know for sure? Yes. Microsoft has said any version of XP, Vista, 7, or 8 will get the $40 upgrade.
chime 14y ago
If the retail is $200, then manufacturers will pay $50. If the retail is $50, no manufacturer will pay even $25. Same applies to volume discounts though Open and VLSC. The retail price is the anchor.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  You talk like OEMs could buy their Windows licenses in a competitive market. They'll pay whatever price Microsoft demands. Its not like they have much choice. And, in terms of ARM-based machines, not even end users will have that choice.
  - bad_user 14y ago
    On the other hand OEMs have an incentive to not sell machines without an OS installed. Some OEMs, like Asus, are selling such PCs, preloaded with FreeDOS, or some Linux distro. Selling PCs with Windows bundled for a price that's lower than a retail license, well, that's a good deal for customers. Take that advantage away and you'll see many more PCs sold without a bundled Windows. And I think that would be bad for Microsoft, because it would put the choice in front of their customers, and that would be unfortunate as most customers aren't even aware of what Windows is or about the existence of other choices.