Originally posted by simonwest80
Havent played any games on 8 as i just have it in a VM environment, and it was just for testing/playing, but it is as Rid said just Windows 7 with a new look.  But i do sort of like it, and my wife loves it and i think this is why it wont bomb............all that is happening like many gaming things is the minority are being pushed to one side, and in this case the minority will be the geeks (us) in favor of the "stupid" user - people who use PCs for Facebook and email only.

I agree and disagree. I see your point, and there will be some that may just use it as a email / online social outlet, but there are allot of people who actually use the office programs to go along with it, amongst other things. Most who do the simpliest tasks as mentioned, have a PC and are use to the current style OS with "START BAR" and desktop. Going from that, to the new Win 8 interface is going to be, I dont want to say shocker, but perhaps a bit overwhelming as they will have to relearn where everything is at and how things interact with each other (example: file downloads and how to gain access to the folder where files are saved). For you and I, probably took 5 minutes to see where things were going, but for the novice user, he/she may just punch a hole in the monitor out of frustration.

Where this will shine, is the Tablet market. MS is starting up its own tablet specifically to get its new OS out there. But, I really think there is more to it. I believe they will promote there tablet, and hope other harware companies get on board and start making there own tablets with a Win 8 OS. MS is not a hardware company for the most part. There main sales is through software. If, the other companies become competitive enough in the tablet market, we will see MS back off on making tablets and focusing on Win 8 licensing for the other tablet makers. Its been  proven that you lose money making the hardware, but the sales come in providing software. If the hardware made money, MS would be making its own brand of PCs.

Prediction...

Win 8 fails on sales for PC

Win 8 has moderate to good sales for tablets and similar devices.

Originally posted by stragen001

Windows 8 is the Vista of 2012.

No one will use it unless forced to by having it preinstalled on their computer. It will be a disaster. 

I wouldnt touch it with someone elses barge pole. 

I have no problems with Vista 64bit and I wouldn't trade it in for win 7 or 8. I will hang on to Vista until they stop supporting it then upgrade at that time.

I'm not entirely sure what to think.

Microsoft isn't really dumb enough to try to force everyone to use a touch-based tablet UI when they have a desktop that can do so much more.  Are they?

I kind of wonder if they're just trying to get everyone to try out the interface formerly known as Metro before launch, but then will relent and let you have the normal interface that everyone with a desktop wants when it finally launches.  That doesn't entirely make sense either, though; why would they try to get everyone to try a tablet UI on desktops, and not on tablets?  Well, other than the fact that there are very few Windows tablets out yet, and most of the ones that do exist are gimpy Atom-based toys that no one buys.

Originally posted by Quizzical

I'm not entirely sure what to think.

Microsoft isn't really dumb enough to try to force everyone to use a touch-based tablet UI when they have a desktop that can do so much more.  Are they?

I kind of wonder if they're just trying to get everyone to try out the interface formerly known as Metro before launch, but then will relent and let you have the normal interface that everyone with a desktop wants when it finally launches.  That doesn't entirely make sense either, though; why would they try to get everyone to try a tablet UI on desktops, and not on tablets?  Well, other than the fact that there are very few Windows tablets out yet, and most of the ones that do exist are gimpy Atom-based toys that no one buys.

metro comes up when you launch windows 8 but you can still click on the desktop icon and go into the standard desktop ui. So you can use either one.. you can also hit the windows key and it will cycle from metro ui to desktop mode ui

It's nothing more than a windows vista with touch capability. I'll leave it at that. Windows 7 is the new xp imo

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Quizzical

I'm not entirely sure what to think.

Microsoft isn't really dumb enough to try to force everyone to use a touch-based tablet UI when they have a desktop that can do so much more.  Are they?

I kind of wonder if they're just trying to get everyone to try out the interface formerly known as Metro before launch, but then will relent and let you have the normal interface that everyone with a desktop wants when it finally launches.  That doesn't entirely make sense either, though; why would they try to get everyone to try a tablet UI on desktops, and not on tablets?  Well, other than the fact that there are very few Windows tablets out yet, and most of the ones that do exist are gimpy Atom-based toys that no one buys.

metro comes up when you launch windows 8 but you can still click on the desktop icon and go into the standard desktop ui. So you can use either one.. you can also hit the windows key and it will cycle from metro ui to desktop mode ui

More like desktop wallpaper. There is no Start bar/taskbar at the bottom. Its mainly so you can put a bunch of shortcuts for easier access. Unless you found a way to enable it, but the only "start" takes you from the desktop back to the metro screen.

Microsoft justified taking away the start button by saying that people don't use it very often.  But that doesn't justify it.  You put the programs you use the most on the taskbar, but when you want to go launch a program that you don't use very often, you use the start button to find it.  That it doesn't get used very often hardly means that it doesn't need to be there.

Most of the time that a computer accesses memory, it gets something either out some level of processor cache or else system memory.  Only infrequently (as a percentage of times it tries to grab data) does it have to grab something from virtual memory.  But that hardly makes virtual memory unnecessary.  It needs to be there precisely as a way to handle the outlier cases--just like the start button.  You'd think that Microsoft of all companies ought to know this.

if you've got the hard drive space, you can always create a partition that will keep win 8 and the programs you want to try with it separate from win 7 with a dual boot setup. its very easy to do, and you can wipe it at any time and delete the partition. thats how i previewed win 8.

now, my thoughts...win 8 sucks. it may be fine for a smartphone or tablet, but its total crap for a pc. win 7 works so well, its scary. why on earth would you want to use any other OS?

i'll also predict that win 8 will flop hard for the pc. worse than vista even...maybe on par with Win ME or windows bob.

Windows8 is, as someone else correctly mentioned, is the 2012-Vista. No one uses, as far as I'm aware, touchscreen monitors, and there's been no market push towards touchscreen monitors to even go in this direction.

I've had the unfortunate task of setting up a dev environment with visual studios 2010 on Windows8 to test for our company if it is worth upgrading to.

Long story short, our company of 2500 some odd employees will be staying with Windows7 professional for QUITE some time, or until Windows9 releases and is not a wholesum pile of crap. Yes, you can "disable" that 'metro' aka 'modern' view & use a semi-functional desktop like windows7, but there are absolutely ZERO upgraded benefits from windows7 if not some detriments.

So I'm not entirely sure why anyone is even considering Win8 for a desktop PC as it is clearly meant for mobile application use.

I've been running Win8x64 for a few months. It has some niceties over 7, but I wouldn't run out and upgrade to it. Performance wise, I notice very little difference between 7 and 8, but I'm not pushing any envelopes hardware-wise. I personally don't much care for the "Modern" menu or the ribbon interface in Explorer, but they aren't killer issues either.

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

Windows8 is, as someone else correctly mentioned, is the 2012-Vista. No one uses, as far as I'm aware, touchscreen monitors, and there's been no market push towards touchscreen monitors to even go in this direction.

 

I've had the unfortunate task of setting up a dev environment with visual studios 2010 on Windows8 to test for our company if it is worth upgrading to.

 

Long story short, our company of 2500 some odd employees will be staying with Windows7 professional for QUITE some time, or until Windows9 releases and is not a wholesum pile of crap. Yes, you can "disable" that 'metro' aka 'modern' view & use a semi-functional desktop like windows7, but there are absolutely ZERO upgraded benefits from windows7 if not some detriments.

 

So I'm not entirely sure why anyone is even considering Win8 for a desktop PC as it is clearly meant for mobile application use.

This is what I'm not understanding. A huge part of the market is business use. It almost seems that every other release is a consumer vs business target.

I actually hurried to buy my new laptop early to keep from getting stuck with Windows 8.

Between personal experience and the response from developers, as I see it the only OS I could get that would be worse than Win 8 would be getting a Mac (in my opinion, macs have the worst ui ever created for an os. I'd rather run windows 95).