16 ms·

Windows 7 outgains Windows 8 in market share again, Windows XP still above 27%

78 points by jonathansizz 13y ago

bambax 13y ago
Isn't there a huge opportunity here for a stable, modern operating system? Or for some system to run complex Windows apps in Linux? (Wine is great but for many apps, such as Adobe Lightroom or Sony Vegas it just dies silently during install.) If there was some container that would let one run complex, modern Windows apps in Linux I'm sure people would pay for it. I would pay for it.
- derefr 13y ago
  The "container" I run my Windows apps on in Linux is, amusingly-enough, a VM running Windows XP. I think Microsoft would be very smart to release a multiplatform replacement for W7/8's Windows XP Mode. Presumably it'd be an even-more-stripped-down version of Windows Embedded 8, with no shell, and all background services configured to only start on request.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    It's just missing a way to easily add shortcuts for the contained software into the container DE. But I think that if Microsoft releases a multiplataform replacement of XP mode, they'll turn the slow fade of Windows into irrelevance into a tremendously fast fading of Windows into irrelevance. Yep, that'd be great, and maybe even good for Microsft (they could focus on software that people actualy want - they have some), but I don't think they want it.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  I'm sure there is, but it's a bit like looking at the power grid and saying "Isn't there a huge opportunity here for cold fusion?" Stable, modern operating systems don't grow on trees after all, and if part of the problem is inertia relating to a few perfectly good, stable, modern operating systems, yet another new one doesn't seem to add much to the bargain.
  - bambax 13y ago
    I run Debian + Xfce and it's extremely good, stable, and modern; if there was a Wine that would work with all apps, we would be there.
- mikestew 13y ago
  You mean something like the Windows Runtime that used to come with some apps that I've since forgotten? I'd find you a link to what I'm talking about but...no, not that Windows Runtime, Google, the other one from the late 80s or early 90s. Of course now it would be a specialized, stripped down VM, which Microsoft would never sell you because licenses. So if you're willing to pay for it, it's called (your VM software of choice) + a Windows license. Not optimal, I know, and way overweight but that's what we get right now.
  - derekp7 13y ago
    I remember that -- it was shipped back in the Windows 2.x days. This is when most people ran Dos, and Windows was an app that ran on top of Dos. I remember it coming with Pagemaker for one thing -- it installed very similar to regular windows, but you didn't get any type of shell or other desktop apps -- just a command to launch the target app under it. This is one thing I would like to see developed again, but in reverse -- a Linux runtime for Windows. There was already a Linux kernel that would run as a user process under Windows (colinux, I think it was); combine this with an X frontend, and file system sharing, and you would be able to package up any Linux app for Windows.
- sanderjd 13y ago
  Honestly, I think that stable, modern operating system is Windows 7. I was at Best Buy looking at computers recently. I asked if I could get one with Windows 7. The sales associate was practically grinding his teeth telling me that no, I could not. "So what if I want a computer that works well as a laptop rather than an extra-bulky tablet?" "Well if you're interested in Macs, we have a lot of nice options over here that fit that bill..." Ouch.
  - mark-r 13y ago
    Hah! If you're going to have to relearn everything anyway, might as well consider switching out completely.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Actually I think there is an opportunity here for a workstation company.
  - mwcampbell 13y ago
    Can you go into some more detail about what kind of product you have in mind here? EDIT: Are you talking about a company that would develop a new operating system and sell workstations running it? Or a company selling pre-configured Linux workstations, of which there are several? Or a company selling pre-configured high-end Windows workstations, of which there are several?
    - ChuckMcM 13y ago
      I am thinking about what it would look like if Canonical bought System76 and launched machines on which there was a developer focused OS where the manufacturer of the machine was also driving a standard distribution/api/eco-system. Let's call it 'Moon Microsystems' but what I'm thinking about is a company that sells desirable hardware to developers, and can provide solid developer support to software companies trying to sell to those developers, and most importantly assurances a road map and a migration strategy and durable APIs that last for years rather than months, and don't change at the whim of a couple of disgruntled folks unable to reach consensus. Where 'Moon' compatibility is a Thing and you can count on it.
- robryan 13y ago
  The economics are in this area aren't at all good for someone new to come in. The price of the OS is trending towards zero and even the completely free to the end user linux hasn't made significant ground into the general desktop market for all the effort that has gone into it in the past 20 years. Supporting everything is such a massive problem and it is hard to gain mainstream traction before people can plug in any combination of hardware, use almost any app they might want to and play all the latest games.
  - lotu 13y ago
    Canonical has been trying to do that with Ubuntu. Unfortunately they and open source community haven't gotten along well enough and they haven't managed to apply enough polish to the UI.
mikegioia 13y ago
I just recently recommended Win7 to my dad over Win8/8.1. I tried getting him to switch to Ubuntu but that just wasn't going to happen. I've been testing our web apps in Windows 7/8 a lot and I can say that getting people to convert to Win8 is going to be a serious uphill battle for Microsoft. The hidden menu, missing start button, and general hodge-podgery of switching between tablet/desktop mode had me ripping my hair out in frustration. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to check my wireless network config in Windows 8 before I got trapped in the white settings screen with no way out. Apparently you have to hover to the top right of the screen for a second to bring up that hidden charms menu even from within the settings screen. Why there's no visible "close" button, and why [ESC] didn't take me out I'll never know but it seems like no one even used Win8 before they released it.
- derefr 13y ago
  > Why there's no visible "close" button, and why [ESC] didn't take me out W8 makes a lot more sense, to me, if you think of Metro applications as each running fullscreen in their own ephemeral virtual desktops. You don't "minimize" a virtual desktop; you switch away from it. You don't "close" a virtual desktop; you quit the program running on it, and it ceases to exist. (In other words, the solution in W8.0 is either "press Alt+F4 to quit the application", or "throw-your-mouse-toward/swipe-away-from at the top-left corner to open the virtual-desktop switcher.") It's exactly the same as fullscreen app behavior in OSX, or Gnome; the only difference is that your "native" windowed apps are all limited to living on a single virtual desktop, rather than the user being able to spread them out across several. In the upcoming 8.1.1 update (or whatever it's called), there'll be an additional UX: throw-your-mouse-toward/swipe-away-from the top of a virtual desktop, and you'll get a sort of title-bar with caption buttons for the virtual desktop itself. That's actually kind of brilliantly-obvious, once you see it, and I hope that idea spreads to every OS.
  - mikegioia 13y ago
    That may be nice and all, but I'm not on a tablet, I'm on a desktop. I know I'm speaking for myself, but I rarely like fullscreen applications in a desktop setting. It's why you infrequently see people using fullscreen mode in their browser unless they're watching videos. The problem I have is that it feels like Microsoft is forcing me into that virtual desktop environment when I just want a regular desktop environment; and it's that aspect that I feel will turn people to Win7.
cwrunks 13y ago
Gee, I wonder why no one's thought of that before. You should get right on that!
octopus 13y ago
I think Windows 8.1 is a lot closer to the classic Windows experience than Windows 8 for e.g. If you select the option to boot directly in the Desktop mode. My mother (55) recently switched from XP to Windows 8.1. Except for 1 - 2 days of initial hurdle she didn't needed my help at all. She is by no means a computer person ...
- polshaw 13y ago
  I've had a similar experience with mine. Literally struggles with copy and paste, but has taken to windows 8 (and modern UI/metro) extremely well, and has no problem with the various swipe gestures for working things. Many things- like printing- have been much easier. That said she does have a touchscreen, which I think is essential to get the benefits of modern UI-- although I still don't believe it is bad for a desktop user; just live in desktop mode all the time and only use the start screen from metro. Items are so much more discoverable in windows 8- that is, much less functionality is hidden behind context/sub-menus.
  - octopus 13y ago
    If you don't have a touchscreen you can set Windows 8.1 to boot (start) directly in Desktop mode, basically you can bypass the Metro interface.
mark-r 13y ago
I work for a reasonably large company that is now in the middle of transitioning all its Windows XP PCs to Windows 7. I imagine that it's the same for many businesses that support a large population. Windows 8 represents a larger retraining burden and hasn't been around long enough for the IT support to be comfortable with it. This report doesn't surprise me at all.
- zmmmmm 13y ago
  Yep, same here. I expect a massive surge in Win7 adoption over the next few months. Remember that Win7 (and Win7 only) ships with XP Mode - the perfect last ditch solution for people with legacy apps or hardware that won't run any other way. So it's an incredibly attractive solution for anyone stuck with a gazillion WinXP boxes to upgrade.
davidf18 13y ago
Windows 8/8.1 has additional security against viruses and malware compared with Windows 7 and for this reason alone I would suggest the update to 8.1 It use it in a Parallels VM but it takes little time to become adjusted to using 8.1
- afhsfsfdsss88 13y ago
  If you are talking about built-in Defender being the tipping point to compel you to move to Windows 8 from Windows 7... That is a non-reason, reason. MSE is 100% free and the same damn thing. The phishing filters and other BS is part of IE, which is also present in Windows 7, not Windows 8 specific. The ASLR, et al are in both versions. There is really nothing tangible which compels an informed PC user to 'upgrade' to Windows 8 from Windows 7.
  - ubercow13 13y ago
    >There is really nothing tangible which compels an informed PC user to 'upgrade' to Windows 8 from Windows 7 There are loads of things! What a silly thing to say. Try reading any article about Windows 8 which doesn't focus on the metro aspect
    - afhsfsfdsss88 13y ago
      My conclusion does not stem from articles. It comes from actually using it next to 7, doing the same user and admin tasks I usually do. Without third party software to reign-in Metro it dominates and cripples the experience for a PC use case. The ONLY thing I wish 7 could steal from 8 is the task manager...
JohnTHaller 13y ago
It's kind of funny that people accept Net Applications' metrics for operating system market share when we're talking about Windows XP/7/8 without making a peep but refuse to accept the fact that Net Applications also shows that IE is the dominant web browser by a large margin (IE @ 58%, Chrome @ 17.5%, Firefox @ 17.3%, Safari @ 5.7%).
- Gracana 13y ago
  Who refuses to believe that?
  - JohnTHaller 13y ago
    I get downvoted to 0 or below on Hacker News every time I point it out along with the fact that Net Applications is more accurate because it measures visitors instead of hits. It's likely some of the same people who downvote and refuse to believe that every character of every URL in Chrome is sent to Google with prediction on (the default). It's funny, some people desperately need to believe that Chrome is the most popular browser and does no wrong just because they use it.
    - Gracana 13y ago
      Huh, no kidding. Well if you ever need more evidence, ars technica does really nice articles on browser market share, like this one: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/windows-8-x-breaks-10-percent-internet-explorer-11-makes-a-splash/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/window...
      - JohnTHaller 13y ago
        That article uses the same data from Net Applications (via NetMarketShare). The Chrome 'true believers' will find some way to explain it away because it doesn't fit their world view. I wonder if they believe if evolution? :)
jayd16 13y ago
I'll post this hear because I need to rant. This weekend I put together a PC for a less technical friend of mine. He had bought windows 8.1 online and had it ready for me, downloaded and burned. Hardware build went fine, installed 8.1. The install went great actually. It was much quicker than I thought it would be! ...except it was 32bit. "Dang! Must have missed a drop down." Hours and hours of reinstalling, pouring over every screen, calling tech support, getting transferred around from department to department eventually landing on someone who was able to tell us that the downloader for windows 8.1 will pick, without option, the bit width of the machine you run the downloader on. WHAT?! I had to drive home to my 64 bit win7 install, download, burn, drive back, and reinstall. The engineering in win 8 is great but the UX and product choices surrounding the engineering is a nightmare. tl;dr had to find a windows 7 machine to install windows 8.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- amaks 13y ago
  one would argue that UX and installation are part of the system engineering. Small screw ups like these leave sore impression of the system and make it unusable.
- nly 13y ago
  So... piracy is still more user friendly? Grand
UUMMUU 13y ago
Microsoft will be relevant again once they've hit rock bottom. Currently they're still digging.
pistle 13y ago
I've used Windows 8 for as long as it's been out and it's my 'get things done' OS via bootcamp on my MBP. I work at a place stuck on 7 and I want 8. Many little things and a few bigger things are just better in 8. Task manager?! Search?! Snapping the metro apps (music/skype/etc) into the little slice along the edge of the screen on one of my monitors? I've only used it on desktops and laptops and it's better than 7. What I keep seeing is "serious" computer people who aren't Windows users, fans, or enthusiasts flailing - much the same way I flail with linux or OSX when doing the 3-5% of tasks that are not well-supported. Finder? F#&$#&$ finder? How do you organize your files on OSX? So I see someone who feels that they should just "get" a new interface because they know how to use a "from-the-corner" menu system, etc. and they don't get it (because they didn't watch Scott Hanselman's Win8 bootstrapping video). So, obviously nobody should be able to get it... psh - LOSER operating system alert!!! Even number FAIL! Check out the penguin tattoo I got. Linux til I die. Here's the thing. My kids get it. They aren't 10. Their mental plasticity and lack of ego enabled them to be mad functional right quick. They jump in and out of desktop mode without a whine or cry for help. We've got 20+ years of a model of thought around approaching the machine. Someone disrupts the model, and the champions of disruption crowd roll up in a ball?
- gedrap 13y ago
  This. I manage to keep emotions aside most of the time, I am cool working with Win/Linux/OS X. I have preferences but I won't cry if I have to work with something which is not my top preference. And I am a happy user of Win8. I believe, most of the criticism is also because it's Microsoft. You know, just like PHP or VB6, it's an easy joke. And hardly anyone will give you weird looks for hating MSFT. Good luck with publicly hating Apple. Of course, there is some good criticism. But only some of it. Innovation is about failing until you find something new that works. Microsoft took a risk by offering something new, this time it didn't pay off. Microsoft people are not toddlers and they were aware of that. Yes, that kind of dashboards is not something unseen to human kind, but it's new having something like that as the first screen after OS loads. Metro is a good example of good idea, shit implementation. I really like the idea of a screen where everything in one place. It's something refreshing in desktop OSes. And the design of Metro apps looks visually appealing (e.g. Skype). But the implementation, default content is pretty bad. It's just not something I might need. And most of the things requiring MS Live account (even Calendar) killed any desire to explore.

78 points by jonathansizz 13y ago

Isn't there a huge opportunity here for a stable, modern operating system? Or for some system to run complex Windows apps in Linux? (Wine is great but for many apps, such as Adobe Lightroom or Sony Vegas it just dies silently during install.) If there was some container that would let one run complex, modern Windows apps in Linux I'm sure people would pay for it. I would pay for it.

derefr 13y ago
The "container" I run my Windows apps on in Linux is, amusingly-enough, a VM running Windows XP. I think Microsoft would be very smart to release a multiplatform replacement for W7/8's Windows XP Mode. Presumably it'd be an even-more-stripped-down version of Windows Embedded 8, with no shell, and all background services configured to only start on request.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  It's just missing a way to easily add shortcuts for the contained software into the container DE. But I think that if Microsoft releases a multiplataform replacement of XP mode, they'll turn the slow fade of Windows into irrelevance into a tremendously fast fading of Windows into irrelevance. Yep, that'd be great, and maybe even good for Microsft (they could focus on software that people actualy want - they have some), but I don't think they want it.
devindotcom 13y ago
I'm sure there is, but it's a bit like looking at the power grid and saying "Isn't there a huge opportunity here for cold fusion?" Stable, modern operating systems don't grow on trees after all, and if part of the problem is inertia relating to a few perfectly good, stable, modern operating systems, yet another new one doesn't seem to add much to the bargain.
- bambax 13y ago
  I run Debian + Xfce and it's extremely good, stable, and modern; if there was a Wine that would work with all apps, we would be there.
mikestew 13y ago
You mean something like the Windows Runtime that used to come with some apps that I've since forgotten? I'd find you a link to what I'm talking about but...no, not that Windows Runtime, Google, the other one from the late 80s or early 90s. Of course now it would be a specialized, stripped down VM, which Microsoft would never sell you because licenses. So if you're willing to pay for it, it's called (your VM software of choice) + a Windows license. Not optimal, I know, and way overweight but that's what we get right now.
- derekp7 13y ago
  I remember that -- it was shipped back in the Windows 2.x days. This is when most people ran Dos, and Windows was an app that ran on top of Dos. I remember it coming with Pagemaker for one thing -- it installed very similar to regular windows, but you didn't get any type of shell or other desktop apps -- just a command to launch the target app under it. This is one thing I would like to see developed again, but in reverse -- a Linux runtime for Windows. There was already a Linux kernel that would run as a user process under Windows (colinux, I think it was); combine this with an X frontend, and file system sharing, and you would be able to package up any Linux app for Windows.
sanderjd 13y ago
Honestly, I think that stable, modern operating system is Windows 7. I was at Best Buy looking at computers recently. I asked if I could get one with Windows 7. The sales associate was practically grinding his teeth telling me that no, I could not. "So what if I want a computer that works well as a laptop rather than an extra-bulky tablet?" "Well if you're interested in Macs, we have a lot of nice options over here that fit that bill..." Ouch.
- mark-r 13y ago
  Hah! If you're going to have to relearn everything anyway, might as well consider switching out completely.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Actually I think there is an opportunity here for a workstation company.
- mwcampbell 13y ago
  Can you go into some more detail about what kind of product you have in mind here? EDIT: Are you talking about a company that would develop a new operating system and sell workstations running it? Or a company selling pre-configured Linux workstations, of which there are several? Or a company selling pre-configured high-end Windows workstations, of which there are several?
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    I am thinking about what it would look like if Canonical bought System76 and launched machines on which there was a developer focused OS where the manufacturer of the machine was also driving a standard distribution/api/eco-system. Let's call it 'Moon Microsystems' but what I'm thinking about is a company that sells desirable hardware to developers, and can provide solid developer support to software companies trying to sell to those developers, and most importantly assurances a road map and a migration strategy and durable APIs that last for years rather than months, and don't change at the whim of a couple of disgruntled folks unable to reach consensus. Where 'Moon' compatibility is a Thing and you can count on it.
robryan 13y ago
The economics are in this area aren't at all good for someone new to come in. The price of the OS is trending towards zero and even the completely free to the end user linux hasn't made significant ground into the general desktop market for all the effort that has gone into it in the past 20 years. Supporting everything is such a massive problem and it is hard to gain mainstream traction before people can plug in any combination of hardware, use almost any app they might want to and play all the latest games.
- lotu 13y ago
  Canonical has been trying to do that with Ubuntu. Unfortunately they and open source community haven't gotten along well enough and they haven't managed to apply enough polish to the UI.

mikegioia 13y ago

I just recently recommended Win7 to my dad over Win8/8.1. I tried getting him to switch to Ubuntu but that just wasn't going to happen. I've been testing our web apps in Windows 7/8 a lot and I can say that getting people to convert to Win8 is going to be a serious uphill battle for Microsoft. The hidden menu, missing start button, and general hodge-podgery of switching between tablet/desktop mode had me ripping my hair out in frustration. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to check my wireless network config in Windows 8 before I got trapped in the white settings screen with no way out. Apparently you have to hover to the top right of the screen for a second to bring up that hidden charms menu even from within the settings screen. Why there's no visible "close" button, and why [ESC] didn't take me out I'll never know but it seems like no one even used Win8 before they released it.

derefr 13y ago
> Why there's no visible "close" button, and why [ESC] didn't take me out W8 makes a lot more sense, to me, if you think of Metro applications as each running fullscreen in their own ephemeral virtual desktops. You don't "minimize" a virtual desktop; you switch away from it. You don't "close" a virtual desktop; you quit the program running on it, and it ceases to exist. (In other words, the solution in W8.0 is either "press Alt+F4 to quit the application", or "throw-your-mouse-toward/swipe-away-from at the top-left corner to open the virtual-desktop switcher.") It's exactly the same as fullscreen app behavior in OSX, or Gnome; the only difference is that your "native" windowed apps are all limited to living on a single virtual desktop, rather than the user being able to spread them out across several. In the upcoming 8.1.1 update (or whatever it's called), there'll be an additional UX: throw-your-mouse-toward/swipe-away-from the top of a virtual desktop, and you'll get a sort of title-bar with caption buttons for the virtual desktop itself. That's actually kind of brilliantly-obvious, once you see it, and I hope that idea spreads to every OS.
- mikegioia 13y ago
  That may be nice and all, but I'm not on a tablet, I'm on a desktop. I know I'm speaking for myself, but I rarely like fullscreen applications in a desktop setting. It's why you infrequently see people using fullscreen mode in their browser unless they're watching videos. The problem I have is that it feels like Microsoft is forcing me into that virtual desktop environment when I just want a regular desktop environment; and it's that aspect that I feel will turn people to Win7.

cwrunks 13y ago

Gee, I wonder why no one's thought of that before. You should get right on that!

octopus 13y ago

I think Windows 8.1 is a lot closer to the classic Windows experience than Windows 8 for e.g. If you select the option to boot directly in the Desktop mode. My mother (55) recently switched from XP to Windows 8.1. Except for 1 - 2 days of initial hurdle she didn't needed my help at all. She is by no means a computer person ...

polshaw 13y ago
I've had a similar experience with mine. Literally struggles with copy and paste, but has taken to windows 8 (and modern UI/metro) extremely well, and has no problem with the various swipe gestures for working things. Many things- like printing- have been much easier. That said she does have a touchscreen, which I think is essential to get the benefits of modern UI-- although I still don't believe it is bad for a desktop user; just live in desktop mode all the time and only use the start screen from metro. Items are so much more discoverable in windows 8- that is, much less functionality is hidden behind context/sub-menus.
- octopus 13y ago
  If you don't have a touchscreen you can set Windows 8.1 to boot (start) directly in Desktop mode, basically you can bypass the Metro interface.

mark-r 13y ago

I work for a reasonably large company that is now in the middle of transitioning all its Windows XP PCs to Windows 7. I imagine that it's the same for many businesses that support a large population. Windows 8 represents a larger retraining burden and hasn't been around long enough for the IT support to be comfortable with it. This report doesn't surprise me at all.

zmmmmm 13y ago
Yep, same here. I expect a massive surge in Win7 adoption over the next few months. Remember that Win7 (and Win7 only) ships with XP Mode - the perfect last ditch solution for people with legacy apps or hardware that won't run any other way. So it's an incredibly attractive solution for anyone stuck with a gazillion WinXP boxes to upgrade.

davidf18 13y ago

Windows 8/8.1 has additional security against viruses and malware compared with Windows 7 and for this reason alone I would suggest the update to 8.1 It use it in a Parallels VM but it takes little time to become adjusted to using 8.1

afhsfsfdsss88 13y ago
If you are talking about built-in Defender being the tipping point to compel you to move to Windows 8 from Windows 7... That is a non-reason, reason. MSE is 100% free and the same damn thing. The phishing filters and other BS is part of IE, which is also present in Windows 7, not Windows 8 specific. The ASLR, et al are in both versions. There is really nothing tangible which compels an informed PC user to 'upgrade' to Windows 8 from Windows 7.
- ubercow13 13y ago
  >There is really nothing tangible which compels an informed PC user to 'upgrade' to Windows 8 from Windows 7 There are loads of things! What a silly thing to say. Try reading any article about Windows 8 which doesn't focus on the metro aspect
  - afhsfsfdsss88 13y ago
    My conclusion does not stem from articles. It comes from actually using it next to 7, doing the same user and admin tasks I usually do. Without third party software to reign-in Metro it dominates and cripples the experience for a PC use case. The ONLY thing I wish 7 could steal from 8 is the task manager...

JohnTHaller 13y ago

It's kind of funny that people accept Net Applications' metrics for operating system market share when we're talking about Windows XP/7/8 without making a peep but refuse to accept the fact that Net Applications also shows that IE is the dominant web browser by a large margin (IE @ 58%, Chrome @ 17.5%, Firefox @ 17.3%, Safari @ 5.7%).

Gracana 13y ago
Who refuses to believe that?
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  I get downvoted to 0 or below on Hacker News every time I point it out along with the fact that Net Applications is more accurate because it measures visitors instead of hits. It's likely some of the same people who downvote and refuse to believe that every character of every URL in Chrome is sent to Google with prediction on (the default). It's funny, some people desperately need to believe that Chrome is the most popular browser and does no wrong just because they use it.
  - Gracana 13y ago
    Huh, no kidding. Well if you ever need more evidence, ars technica does really nice articles on browser market share, like this one: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/windows-8-x-breaks-10-percent-internet-explorer-11-makes-a-splash/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/window...
    - JohnTHaller 13y ago
      That article uses the same data from Net Applications (via NetMarketShare). The Chrome 'true believers' will find some way to explain it away because it doesn't fit their world view. I wonder if they believe if evolution? :)

jayd16 13y ago

I'll post this hear because I need to rant. This weekend I put together a PC for a less technical friend of mine. He had bought windows 8.1 online and had it ready for me, downloaded and burned. Hardware build went fine, installed 8.1. The install went great actually. It was much quicker than I thought it would be! ...except it was 32bit. "Dang! Must have missed a drop down." Hours and hours of reinstalling, pouring over every screen, calling tech support, getting transferred around from department to department eventually landing on someone who was able to tell us that the downloader for windows 8.1 will pick, without option, the bit width of the machine you run the downloader on. WHAT?! I had to drive home to my 64 bit win7 install, download, burn, drive back, and reinstall. The engineering in win 8 is great but the UX and product choices surrounding the engineering is a nightmare. tl;dr had to find a windows 7 machine to install windows 8.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
amaks 13y ago
one would argue that UX and installation are part of the system engineering. Small screw ups like these leave sore impression of the system and make it unusable.
nly 13y ago
So... piracy is still more user friendly? Grand

UUMMUU 13y ago

Microsoft will be relevant again once they've hit rock bottom. Currently they're still digging.

pistle 13y ago

I've used Windows 8 for as long as it's been out and it's my 'get things done' OS via bootcamp on my MBP. I work at a place stuck on 7 and I want 8. Many little things and a few bigger things are just better in 8. Task manager?! Search?! Snapping the metro apps (music/skype/etc) into the little slice along the edge of the screen on one of my monitors? I've only used it on desktops and laptops and it's better than 7. What I keep seeing is "serious" computer people who aren't Windows users, fans, or enthusiasts flailing - much the same way I flail with linux or OSX when doing the 3-5% of tasks that are not well-supported. Finder? F#&$#&$ finder? How do you organize your files on OSX? So I see someone who feels that they should just "get" a new interface because they know how to use a "from-the-corner" menu system, etc. and they don't get it (because they didn't watch Scott Hanselman's Win8 bootstrapping video). So, obviously nobody should be able to get it... psh - LOSER operating system alert!!! Even number FAIL! Check out the penguin tattoo I got. Linux til I die. Here's the thing. My kids get it. They aren't 10. Their mental plasticity and lack of ego enabled them to be mad functional right quick. They jump in and out of desktop mode without a whine or cry for help. We've got 20+ years of a model of thought around approaching the machine. Someone disrupts the model, and the champions of disruption crowd roll up in a ball?

gedrap 13y ago
This. I manage to keep emotions aside most of the time, I am cool working with Win/Linux/OS X. I have preferences but I won't cry if I have to work with something which is not my top preference. And I am a happy user of Win8. I believe, most of the criticism is also because it's Microsoft. You know, just like PHP or VB6, it's an easy joke. And hardly anyone will give you weird looks for hating MSFT. Good luck with publicly hating Apple. Of course, there is some good criticism. But only some of it. Innovation is about failing until you find something new that works. Microsoft took a risk by offering something new, this time it didn't pay off. Microsoft people are not toddlers and they were aware of that. Yes, that kind of dashboards is not something unseen to human kind, but it's new having something like that as the first screen after OS loads. Metro is a good example of good idea, shit implementation. I really like the idea of a screen where everything in one place. It's something refreshing in desktop OSes. And the design of Metro apps looks visually appealing (e.g. Skype). But the implementation, default content is pretty bad. It's just not something I might need. And most of the things requiring MS Live account (even Calendar) killed any desire to explore.