PC sales Suffer Biggest Slump in years

It sounds like the preview is coming out on June 26, and I've seen one comment about there being no upgrade path between the preview and final release.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Customers aren't going to be fooled by a crippled Start Button. Microsoft really wants to shove users to the Start Screen, and they seem to feel that if they offer a real Start Button, that users will not use the Start Screen. But if their Start Screen was so good, users would use it all on their own, without having to be herded there.

I don't understand why they feel the need to push people. All that MS has done is push me away from all of their products. I understand the need to change with the marketplace, but they could add new options without trying to control how I use the product. Let me opt out.

[hidari]

MS blew it in many ways on the consumer front at least...too little too late... IOS and ANDROID continue to rise...

[Katsunami]

"Tablets and phones are replacing notebooks and desktops."

Yeah, right. Maybe for the surfing mom or e-mailing grandpa, but not for people who have to actually DO stuff. iOS or Android won't replace my desktop. Not by a long shot. They won't even replace my laptop.

If I have to do *anything* beside quickly looking up something, I want a notebook at least. If I have to do a lot of stuff, I want a desktop. No contest.

[hidari]

agreed to a point...but still MS.... got outplayed....in the last few years... I do 90 percent of my work with my Nexus 10, but I made the commitment....and it has been more or less easy... for some tablets are the way...for others not... and so it goes.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

If I have to do *anything* beside quickly looking up something, I want a notebook at least. If I have to do a lot of stuff, I want a desktop. No contest.

Agreed. On the other hand, there are a lot of multi-PC households. How many of those households are going to return to one PC?

Another thing to consider is that a lot of people barely even use the basic functionality found in tablet applications. Throw in a portable keyboard and they'll probably be happy to do without a PC.

[Dopedangel]

You keep dissing that but 90% of home PC use today is just browsing the net and email facebook, netflix etc.
So for majority android, iOS are capable replacements. For the rest there is chrome Firefox and other web based OS.

Originally Posted by Fluribus

I don't understand why they feel the need to push people. All that MS has done is push me away from all of their products. I understand the need to change with the marketplace, but they could add new options without trying to control how I use the product. Let me opt out.

You can opt out. There are plenty of start menu add-ons.

Besides, I don't think the new UI is the problem. Discoverability is the problem. For example: there is no visual indication on how to return to the start screen from legacy or modern application. Fix that, and I'll bet that most people will stop grumbling about the loss of the start menu. Then again, those aren't the only problems with discoverability. The charms bar is used to access a lot of important stuff, but it is out of sight and out of mind until you activate it. Even the login screen is one of those head scratchers. It's pretty and all, but you wouldn't know what it was for until you jabbed at the keyboard or twiddled the mouse.

So no, I don't think the problem is that Microsoft tried to foist a new UI on its users. I think the problem is that Microsoft tried to foist a poorly designed UI on its users. Adding to the appeal of the poor design are the limitations. (It's a first generation product, of course it's going to be incomplete. Why did Microsoft thing it was time to make it the primary UI?) While it sounds like Windows 8.1 is going to solve some of that, it doesn't go far enough. In fact it's fixing less than independent developers managed to fix prior to the official release of Windows 8. Maybe Microsoft should look at why it's development model is so slow and unresponsive.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by Fluribus

I don't understand why they feel the need to push people. All that MS has done is push me away from all of their products. I understand the need to change with the marketplace, but they could add new options without trying to control how I use the product. Let me opt out.

Like a lot of people, my next "netbook" will be a Chromebook.

The "net book" concept itself was a step away from MS and the old line computers. In fact MS had to back off demanding to charge $50 plus for the net book operating system, and went to $10 to $20 for a XP home system. People were just going to go to Linux directly if they hadn't done it.

Normally just like with our phones and tablets people don't need a "full fledged computer" and they have been weaning themselves from them.

Granted sometimes there is a need for one in our professional life, but not very much. We are learning that there are a multitude of ways to avoid having one. One not mentioned is the array of powerful programs on line and in the cloud. Chromebook will work with these.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

False alarm. No 8.1 yet, but according to the buzz it's due out before the end of June.

WAIT!

More RAVINGS?!

You were carrying on about June 1 and look what that got you!

Now you are carrying on about the END of JUNE?!

Don't you just feel a little tired?

Just sip a little more lemonade and lose all this frenzy...

It is summer.

[Greg Anos]

I plan on running XP Pro Service pack 3 until I die or become too senile to work a computer. I have visualized it under Oracle's Virtual Box, it'll transfer and run on any x86 machine running virtual box. Works just fine under Mint Linux.

Why?

I've played with Android twice, the most recent a couple days ago. It's simply too limited. Multidrive is not inherent in the OS, it's an external bolt on. Software may (or may not) support it.

Android is designed to run a phone. Data comes in via wireless signal, data goes out the same way. It is not designed for expansive local data storage. It's not design to drive peripherals. You are expected to pull it in via wireless (streaming). That may be all you want, but this old dinosaur needs more. I want to print out a Southwest Airlines boarding passes. I want to be able to type long missives. I have been type professionally on a full-sized keyboard professionally for 30+ years. The virtual keyboard, in comparison, is a joke. I want to be able to use portable local storage with oodles of data. Why not? I have it already, built years ago. I chafe at the limitations of Android.

Of course, most people think of a desktop as a big behemoth tower. I use these little one-lunged net-tops, which as going to get much more powerful soon. (check the forthcoming VIVO PC from ASUS).

But then again, I'm an old dinosaur...

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I plan on running XP Pro Service pack 3 until I die or become too senile to work a computer. I have visualized it under Oracle's Virtual Box, it'll transfer and run on any x86 machine running virtual box. Works just fine under Mint Linux.

You're not seriously going to tell me that you're going to install Linux onto a computer, only to have it run VirtualBox with Windows XP inside it, using the virtual machine as your main operating system?

In that case, good luck. After supports officially ends, most newer programs such as browsers will drop support for Windows XP too. After some years, you'll be stuck with *very* old programs. Even web browsing will become hard, if the programs don't support updated standards.

You could at least switch to Windows 7, and run that up until 2020. Even while I'm not too big a fan of Windows 8's default modus operandi, it can be made to work like a "normal" Windows, if you clear all the tiles from the Modern UI, and then install a start menu replacement that can also block/replace the gestures, boot to the desktop immediately and disable all the hot corners. One of those is Start8 from Star Dock.

You'll basically end up with a very flat and 80's looking Windows 7.1, but it will be supported to at least 2023.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

You're not seriously going to tell me that you're going to install Linux onto a computer, only to have it run VirtualBox with Windows XP inside it, using the virtual machine as your main operating system?

In that case, good luck. After supports officially ends, most newer programs such as browsers will drop support for Windows XP too.

You could at least switch to Windows 7, and run that up until 2020. Even while I'm not too big a fan of Windows 8's default modus operandi, it can be made to work like a "normal" Windows, if you clear all the tiles from the Modern UI, and then install a start menu replacement that can also block/replace the gestures, boot to the desktop immediately and disable all the hot corners. One of those is Start8 from Star Dock.

You'll basically end up with a very flat and 80's looking Windows 7.1, but it will be supported to at least 2023.

Define main computer.

The purpose of Linux is to run I/O programs, browers, e-mail, ect.

The purpose of XP is to run 20 years worth of existing, paid for, software that works just fine. 16 and 32 bit software that was cut off at the knees by Windows 7's refusal to keep the 16 bit emulator.

And note, I always run a two machine setup with a KMV switcher. One for internet (the "dirty" machine) and one that is never hooked up to the internet at all (the "sterile" machine). Most of the time I'm on the "sterile machine". that's where my music library is, and most of my "brown and useful" software is (Word 97, video player, Finereader 9, et al.) Nobody looks "over my shoulder" at what I listen to, games I play, or work I do. They can't. No I/O.

Total rig cost $500 USD...

So why should I care about Windows 8, or iOS, or Android....(or cutoff dates?)

[Katsunami]

Well done... you're even more extreme than I am with regard to ensuring compatibility and security. I seldom see that, to be honest.

(Still, Windows 7 32-bit can run 16-bit programs. It's the 64-bit version that can't.)

[Greg Anos]

The machine I got (a netbook) had 64 bit Windows 7 installed. There was no reason not to install the 32 and 16 bit emulator, except that Microsoft was trying to <force> people to abandon their old software and buy new software (from Microsoft). Oracle's Virtual Box proved that.

And by the way, I run an Atari 800 emulator under the XP virtual box. And DOSBox, and...

Computers come and go - but software will run as long as something can execute the instruction set.