I HATE Windows 8. This is the worst OS ever invented.

WOW, the latest news about Ballmer is amazing...  but do we have to wait 12 months?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/technology/ballmer-announces-retirement-from-microsoft.html?pagewanted=all

I don't know if this is good news for Windows users or not?

There is a difference between arrogance and "staying the course", it might be subtle but "staying the course" says means that you don't loose focus on the original goal (i.e. to make Windows great) while arrogance is to stick to a half baked GUI saying "learn to use it".

I would like to see Ballmer stay and fix the mess that is Windows 8. But maybe he is still too arrogant to admit there is a problem than to be humble enough to stay fix it?  I think he needs a visionary by his side to help him.  It is obvious he does not have such support at the moment.

I really doubt that Ballmer is the person who designed Windows 8, the real problem is whoever did designed Windows 8 in the first place (unless they were forced to design it).  I really hope the team who put Windows 8 together leaves along with Ballmer, and that someone goes and rescues Microsoft's User Interface Design Team out of dungeon under Redmond that they were put in, because I am convinced they were locked-up when they first complained about the Windows 8 GUI, it is the only logical explanation.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/why-steve-ballmer-failed/278986/

There is a major difference between the money made from new and innovative products that create emerging markets to that gained from supporting an existing and saturated market. Just because a market is not growing, does not mean the market does not exist.

Apple made a huge fortune from a Smart phone that worked (Microsoft had tried smart phones much earlier but failed).  Now that the market is nearly saturated and competition has caught up, even Apple is having trouble to "re-innovate” the smart phone.  It is way too late for Microsoft to think they can step in and somehow do it all over again. That emerging market has emerged, unless someone can really re-innovate it.

The Tablet market is different to the Smart Phone market.  When the iPad came out, technology would not support personal computers as tablets so Apple had to create a new light weight OS based on a smart phone OS.  While a smart phone OS supports a lot of home and social media users, it does not support the corporate market. The corporate market and many other uses (like myself) want a real personal computer for their Tablet PC.  SciFi movies last century showed people using real computers as a tablet device, or even as smaller devices.  Microsoft still has a good chance in the Tablet market, if they do it right.

There is a need for real computers. And a need for real computers as Tablets. The world has yet to realise the potential for ultralight-weight, very flat (like paper) computers.

So, please Ballmer and Microsoft, don't give up on Tablet PCs (but you can throw away Metro, I won't mind). Please realise that it took years to refine the Desktop experience of Windows 7. To throw this all away for Metro was really "stupid".   If Metro was a better interface and Metro apps were more functional than their Desktop partners it would have been a winner, but they were not and still are not.

I have some great visions on what I would like to see in Windows Tablet PCs.  The Surface Pro is a great start, the problem is that the hardware from Intel does not yet really support it as much as we would like. We need the power of an i7 but the battery life greater than that of the Atom. It is just not technically possible yet.

Lack of innovation. The i7 CPU has not significantly delivered any great gains since it first was released.  There is little incentive for people to upgrade.  The Tablet PCs which were released in 2012 were using chipsets that just could not effectively support the Tablet PC concept.  Future advances such as human interaction with computers (voice recognition and body gestures) will require far great processing power than we have today.

I get frustrated by so much of the commentary on Windows 8 in the Media.  They make candid comments without looking at the wider scene.  The PC is not dead (yet), it is just not an emerging market, it is a saturated market.  Bill Gates is correct, Microsoft needs to get into the cloud, but the way to do this is not to kill Windows and the desktop, the way it to open a new niche market and let people migrate when they are ready.  Apple did not kill OSX when they launched iOS, they simply have both, allowing people (the market) to decide which they preferred.  In fact most people I have seen have chosen both, to have a MAC desktop/laptop and several iPads and phones of differing form factors.

I want people reading this to comment on, “How would you fix Windows 8 ?”, “How would you redesign Windows for both Tablets and Desktops ?”  Or is this just asking too much.

My quick answer is to have two modes in Windows 8, one a Desktop mode and secondly a Tablet mode.  Like  StarDock’s Start8 and ModernMix, desktop users could have a “desktop mode” to view all applications in a multiple overlayed windowed desktop (with Aero, please). While Tablet uses could have a full screened Tiled Start Menu with full screen apps.  Then most of us could be happy. 

While I hate working full screen, I do see a lot of Windows users who do work 90% of the time with their applications full screen.

But the big point would have to be “choice”.  The major lack of choice in altering how Tiles look, the lack of choice to choose between a Full Screen menu and the Windows 7 style menu was not appreciated.

The second major failing of Windows 8, was that all its apps and features were only half completed.  To me Metro apps lacked the sophistication, functionality and usability of their Desktop counterparts.  To gain acceptance, they have to offer more functionality and be more usable, not less.

What I would be happy with is to take all the performance and device improvements of Windows 8 and update it into Windows 7, releasing Windows 7.5.  Then with a touch pen, I could happily use a Tablet PC with a Desktop GUI.

On another related topic, I have a concern that the coming Bay Trail chipset may not be powerful enough to run Adobe Photo Shop at any useable speed.  I have been pinning my hopes on the Bay Trail providing an 800g Tablet with both battery life (12 hours continuous work) and enough processing power so that our graphic designers could work both in and outside the office.

Summary:  By November, I want to be able to buy a “Windows” Tablet PC (i.e. not Metro) that can run Adobe Photo Shop for 12 hours without recharge, weigh less than 1kg, has Pen input, has keyboard, and supports Mobile Broadband. Can anyone please deliver this?  Maybe a Bay Trail Yoga ?

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Die Metro, DIE DIE DIE!   (sorry, my frustrations got the better of me).

On Thu, 1 Nov 2012 02:54:25 +0000, JohnOstendorf wrote:

How in the ** does anybody operate in this environment.  I now have 20 windows open and can't figure out how to close a damn thing.  I know the weather in Paris and couldn't give a **. This SUCKS!!! This is an improvement?  Can I get Windows XP or 7 back?  This SUCKS!!!  I can't get around.  I can't close a window.  I can't update any of these stupid tiles.  This SUCKS!!! Any advice from anybody else out there?   Frustrated beyond belief, John

You don't know how to use Windows 8, so you hate it? That's like

saying you don't know to fly an airplane, so you hate airplanes.

Like anything else new, it takes some time to learn to use Windows 8

and get accustomed to what's different and what's improved. Instead of

taking steps backward in time and reverting to an obsolescent version

of Windows, you should get yourself a good book and learn how to use

what you have.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

Ken, I think that windows is limited and very hard to use. I think the programmers at Microsoft programmed windows 8 for people that don't know anything about computers. You want us to be tied into thoughtless usage of an operating system. Well, I have to say that I really loved the old format. I understand it and I am in no mood to be in a mindless environment where you can spy on me with every keystroke. I hate windows mobile 8 too. Yuck yuck yuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Sat, 3 Nov 2012 00:52:03 +0000, CoolCatFeline wrote:

Move your mouse to the lower right hand corner and icons (charms) will emerge.

Select the lower one which looks like a gear.

A settings menu will appear with a power button near the bottom.

This will allow you to shut down.

Could they make it any more non-intuitive and difficult to find? Ridiculous.

Alternatively (and preferably, in my view) download and install the
free Classic Shell (or even better, the $4.99 Start8), which will put
back the Start Orb and Start menu. Then you can shut down (and do
almost everything else) just as you did in Windows 7.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

Move your mouse to the lower right hand corner and icons (charms) will emerge.

Select the lower one which looks like a gear.

A settings menu will appear with a power button near the bottom.

This will allow you to shut down.

 Personally, I like Windows 8 for the most part.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

http://youtu.be/nn2FB1P_Mn8?t=12s