Discussion on:

Rejected: 74% of organizations have no plans to deploy Windows 8

Will be in the corporate world for a long time. Most places are just getting away from XP.
This o/s will be a dud. The tablet craze has died down now.

(Minority report fantasies)

My company just finished deploying Windows 7 with a handful of users still hanging on to Windows XP due to legacy apps. A lot of companies are beholden to their line of business application provider and can't even install a service pack without the vendor's blessing.

Businesses aren't like consumers. They don't base their purchases on one vendor's product release cycle. This isn't anything against Windows 8, it's just the reality of running a business. I'm pretty sure that even Microsoft won't upgrade all of it's PC's to Windows 8.

NT

you mean "obligated"

Some LoB vendors have companies by the short hairs. At my former employer, they dictated our IT environment. We couldn't patch a browser without their permission because if something didn't work and the browser sub-version number didn't match their requirements, we were on our own.

That bank is probably still running on Windows XP.

Some users use computers to accomplish speific work. SO they pick hardware and OS platforms that support the software that they need to do the work. Maybe?

In the world where software has to work reliably all the time, change in the underlyig platform is expensive and carries a lot of risk. Proper software validation is not cheap or easy, and it takes time.

To justify that risk there has to be a reward. That's reality 101.

No; no we don't agree.

Not at all likely they look cheap nasty and like something that was in Windows 1 Predevelopment Concept long before a Beta was ever thought about.

I saw better Icons with better design on BBS's long before most people knew what the inter web thingy was.

But maybe that's just me.

Col

tile option was tried in Linux a few years back and got picked on there by most of the users, to the extent some Linux developers have dropped them again and others have come up with a whole swag of alternate GUIs that appeal more to the non-tile crowd.

Glass 3D became Aero a few years later, and now the same with the tiles - which shows MS is 3 to 4 years behind the times.

like putting large wooden boxes on a sleek aerodynamic race car.

nt

Mostly what I don't like is that they've replaced the Start Menu. Why would I want a full-screen Start Menu? We got rid of that when Windows 95 replaced the Program Manager in Windows 3.1.

I don't like having to bypass the Start screen every time I log in to get to the desktop. As a support tech, I log into multiple machines dozens of times a day. That's dozens of times I had to get past the Start screen to get to the traditional desktop where I can get some real work done.

I don't like the inability to arrange the tiles to my preference. You can't push them all the way to the top or left sides of the screen; that leaves a lot of wasted screen space. You can't arrange them in horizontal rows; they get forced into vertical ones.

I find the ones for traditional apps to be ugly when compared to W7 Start Menu shortcuts. That's my personal opinion, but so is your 'expression' that everyone thinks they look nice.

I have no use for the 'live' feature of the Metro app tiles. I don't participate in social networking, don't need a constant weather update, don't need to track my 401K every second. There are plenty of cases where these would be a waste of slow bandwidth. I'll bet they're fighting tooth and nail to download e-mail in the northeastern US right now; streaming Tweets by default isn't going to make that any easier.

Yes, if I forget they were built by Microsoft, they might be easier for me to accept. That's because if the OS was from another source, I wouldn't expect it to behave like Windows. But it is from MS, and it doesn't behave like previous versions of Windows. MS is expecting me to abandon habits and behaviors they've spent years ingraining in me (and the users I support), for what I regard as minimal benefits.

W8 is going to rock on tablets and phones, but I don't see any benefits to it on a desktop, laptop, or any other device not designed for mobility or content consumption. I'm glad you like the tiles, but don't tell me everyone does. If it's 'just an expression', it's grossly inaccurate and I suggest you stop using it if it isn't exactly what you mean.

"Mostly what I don't like is that they've replaced the Start Menu. " You summed it up in one sentence.

....As they sort of vomited the whole thing up onto your screen.

I keep seeing these comments about the start menu being replaced. I installed Windows 8 and found a very nice start menu at about the same place as the Windows 7 Start menu. Just one click and the social interfaces disappear. I admit when it first loaded, I was felt a little confounded, until I went to windows.com and spent 15 minutes with the tutorials.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU FILLED ALL THE HOLES IN A LEAKY BOAT ANOTHER HUGE HOLE POPS OPEN; THEN YOU SAY TO YOURSELF "(OOPS) THIS. THIS AINT WORKING; TIME TO ABANDON A FRIENDSHIP THAT IS NOT WORKING; ( )HIT SHAPPENS.

Most of us in IT support have pretty much already fluent with Windows 8, it won't take noobs that long to learn and get used to it

You're imposing your knowledge and expertise on n00bs. Trust me, that's *not* the case. The problem with people in IT is they forget 'what it was like' back in their Dark Ages when they first saw, and tried to use, a computer.

Yes, we had a much better 'sense' of what it was we were dealing with because computers only drew users from those technically inclined and not afraid of trying things. That was half the fun.

But today's consumer is another breed. 'Trust me, we'll take care of you.' And they do. 'Click here.' And they do, without the most tiny of ideas of why. And all the companies, not just Microsoft, take full advantage of that complete lack of interest in 'how does it work?' Or, maybe more important, why does it work.

There is still a small portion of new users who are curious and want to know 'how/why' - and much more - they're the ones who will drive future changes.

I remember similar reports for (pretty much) EVERY Windows O/S release ever. If you use Win8 in Desktop mode, you essentially have Windows 7 for all pragmatic purposes. Metro will be choice when you're on a tablet, Desktop mode when you're at your desk. So, I think it will all depend upon the needs of the users. I know I'm ramping up to deploy it on MY computer, just because I want to be able to share elements of my desktop with a Surface Pro tablet once it releases in 2013 (an experience that I can't quite capture with an iPad). But for most of my organization, it probably will be a non-issue. We'll cut over to Windows 8 (or 9) as we upgrade/replace machines.

It's not the same as Windows 7 in desktop mode, you keep having to switch back and forth to the Start screen which is incredibly annoying, I keep losing track of what I'm doing and also I end up having to plaster the desktop with icons because I can't be bothered to go hunting for the tile. It's crap.

Set up the start screen in groups that are useful to you with the desktop icon in the top left, then the return key always takes you to the desktop. Put some useful shortcuts like "Shutdown" and "Restart" in the same group. Use Alt-F4 to close Apps instead of swanning around with the mouse and use the "Windows" key to switch to and from the desktop to the Start Screen. It is now quicker and possibly better organised than with Windows 7 Start Menu. I have no icons on my desktop and just a few on the Task bar. My Start menu has four groups, "Utils" including Desktop, Shutdown, Restart, Store and search, "Apps", "Productivity" including some MS Office icons and GIMP, "Tools" including Control Panel, Command, Secunia PSI and notepad. It works for me and when I start using a Windows tablet, which I'm sure will come, I can have the same setup.

Goodie for you.. Greytech .. you've spent time getting things the way you want them or need them ..

Many of us don't have time to do this for our users, nor having to switch from the desktops they are already use to, over to the Metro UI ... additionally as someone else posted.. the live tile bull.. our employees are not marketing are not *supposed* to be socially connected for the 9 hours they have on site .. they are to be working, with the exception of an EMPLOYER PROVIDED XMPP (Pidgin) connection which are *ONLY* setup for employee to employee communication .. and the the use then is more than just "update happy tiles" they are conversational based messages.

Just like others have said.. our shop (under 250 employees) are multitasking all day with 10 or more windowed apps (ie, ff, chrome, having additional windows each) not one employee have I ever seen with a full screen on anything unless its during a webex (or noc when watching movies) beyond that.. windows 8 appears to hold no love for the multi-windowed with more than simultaneous view enabled by the corners of our eye..

ie over lay several command prompts pinging different IP's so that you can see when one starts or stops responding while the other continues, or multiple SSH windows running a command in one then processing something in another watching for the shell to come back.. or even run MTR in a smaller ssh window watching latency and packet loss while doing other things..

all of this multitasking is hampered by a conceptualized tablet interface where your whole screen is taken up with *one* app.

Again.. the problem is that Microsoft didn't make it easy or even track what type of pc you're on.. I'm at my desk, two monitors.. I want the standard Start Menu & desktop experience .. I detach my screen / tablet .. then I'd like MS to switch over to a tablet centric interface.. but not while its attached at the desk, with two 22 inch monitors attached with the multitude of actions going on.

nt

Please explain? there is not a Desktop Mode in the current version; at least what I have found.

locked into expensive core software designed for Win XP that will not work properly on the versions of Windows released since, thus they'll stay with XP as long as they can as the cost of moving on is just too high in the current environment.

Yes, XP Mode in Win 7 helps some organisations, but I've found it will NOT run ALL software designed for XP, and this is the area that I see a lot of the delays.

Also, with the cost of touch screens being about three times that of non-touch screens (especially in the larger sizes) there is no advantage to a touch centric OS for people not using a touch screen.

Personally, I think the forced changes by Microsoft in command sets so legacy software and hardware don't work are what is causing much of the dissension of the last few years and will continue to be a major issue until they stop doing it.

None of the comments quoted in the article referred to application incompatibility. The GUI training issues seemed to dominate.

I wouldn't know if any of our legacy apps will work with W8. The interface issues have put deploying it off our schedule, so we haven't bothered with app testing.

from XP are doing so due to the cost of important legacy software. A few I know that were concerned about having move onto what they call Microsoft Orifice, have been successfully moved up to Win 7 with Libre Office - the move to Win 7 was due to some hardware driver issues between XP and their new PCs.

There are a lot of organisations with critical legacy software originally designed for Win 2000 and Win XP that do NOT have newer versions as much of it was special design stuff. All that is very costly to redo.

MS Office 2003, don't upgrade it; it won't work. Actually there are reports of users being able to install it and use it but it breaks the automatic windows updates.
Thanks,

Is potential incompatibility with legacy applications and the cost of touch screens the only reasons not to go to Windows 8? Although these two alone are probably enough, but there are many more reasons. Business is all about productivity. Is there a study indicating that using touch screen, as opposed other pointing device, boosts productivity. I don't believe that. Yes, touch screen is a great tool for consuming content; I doubt it's a great tool for producing it.

a lot with the type of work you do. For people like me who create and alter documents a lot (I wrote stories and edit others a lot now) Win 8 is a very retrograde step that reduces productivity. For some others it may enhance their productivity.

The whole topic of productivity is conspicuously absent from all the hyperbole about Windows-8 and touch-centric tablets. Is that a huge part of running a business? Your last two statements are so correct.

nt

Yeah, almost the entire financial sector is still using vertical software which won't run on Win8, and they really didn't need 7 in order to use it, or it won't run on 7, either. That, and the lack of backwards-compatibility. I alone operate my 22 machines. Due to lack of backwards-compatibility with each MS 'upgrade', I've had to keep my older machines deployed. Result is that each machine becomes dedicated to the programs and hardware which don't 'upgrade' with the OS. I purposely just bought three more machines with hardware which can 'bridge' to Win8 if I ever have to go to it. But I won't go to it except kicking and screaming, and the meanwhile am newly learning Linux so I can create dual-boots. You can still get Linux in older versions for very old machines (going all the way back to i386.) Can't do that with Windows.

MS really has made it too complicated and buggy. God forbid you should UPGRADE rather than install a fresh OS. Which version of the OS do you buy, do you pick OEM or upgrade or (now) System builder version, how do you know all the differences in each, to decide? The differences are significant, and undisclosed. Example: Excel 2003 won't run a DOS Lotus 1-2-3 on XP Pro unless I sign up with MS to have 'credentials', but will run fine on Home.

Upgrades versus clean install versus reinstalls, unknown features/bugs, removal of old useful features, wholly-new procedures -- all these make for slower sales, more angst, and a gradual weariness when an 'update' occurs. When a collegue was surprised I answered the phone right away, I said I was just idle, trying to 'screw up my courage' to install the machines which FedEx had just delivered. His laughter was of empathetic commiseration.

I would very much like to see priced Linux applications which can read the files Windows apps create. Still open-source, idea being you're paying for the software and you can change the code afterwards, or get updates from the Linux vendor, again for a fee. So still open source, but priced. That's akin to selling a Lotus 1-2-3 DOS template. Big market for that, back in the old days.

Linux needs to get out of its 'no cost' mentality, because the software DOES cost you in TIME. That's why it's less popular. People should be paid. We'd jump on that in the business world, as we don't want to write our own code, but need to be able to see how it works. Sorry, but LibreOfice and its kin don't have enough oomph. There are many other applications in Linux which are too weak compared to their non-Linux counterparts. There is money to be made, noble money. After all, people didn't stop buying Kleenex when other tissue began to be manufactured and sold. We stick to a brand that originates. The copycats generally produce a lower-quality product.

I'm sick of MS' tyrannical architecture, which is responsible for most crashes. Funny: once Win98 stopped being supported, it became stable, and I"ve not had even one crash since the support stopped. Now, suddenly my XP machines are much more stable, because I'm not getting the 'updates' as before due to support ending. So my new Vista and Win7 machines from Dell Auction, I wonder if I should update. Will see.

I shudder to think what a multiple-employee business is going through!

Wow. That must be the geek equivalent of the lady with 22 cats.

but it depends on which ones. Libre Office reads all the MSO files OK, is one example. There are paid for programs like Crossover that runs on Linux and will run most Windows based software within it, like a VM. Cedega and WINE are very much the same.

Unless there is something unique about the hardware, I'd look at that approach.

1) Windows Millenium. 2) Vista. 3) Windows 8. You'd think Microsoft could do better (and I am not a regular Microsoft basher).

Vista was an okay OS, get tired of people saying it was bad. It wasn't bad at all, it was just a shock to people who'd started using a computer with XP or 2000 and had no experience of having to switch drivers. The memory handling wasn't that fantastic I do agree but I've got plenty of users on Vista and it works fine.

Note that Vista is Windows 6.0, 7 is 6.1 and 8 is 6.2 - check the build numbers.

mainly due to incompatibility. Drivers didn't work for nearly a year. Applications were 6 months to a year before they had stable versions (antivirus anyone?).

No. Vista was a disaster. The only thing that "worked" on it was Office, and only if you upgraded.

Vista really did suffer out of the box, for all the reasons mentioned above. However, after several months (well, really after SP1) it was quite a good, stable OS. But no one ever heard those news reports and the myth of its atrocity grew and grew, even beyond the time when it was no longer true.

With press such as this, especially with headlines (Rejected!) that will be taken to mean 74% Plan NOT to deploy Windows 8--a far cry from the reality of 24% who feel this way, WIndows 8 may well be on the way to suffering from the same mythology.

the command set so the hardware that was manufactured as XP compatible was NOT Vista compatible. Then they didn't include enough drivers to over come that in the initial versions of Vista. Add in they didn't give the hardware companies enough lead time to make Vista compatible hardware, and you got what happened - software that didn't work well with much of the hardware.

By the time things had progresses to the drivers and compatible hardware being available, most people had given up on it. And the root cause was a deliberate arbitrary change of the command sets by Microsoft - in short, they shot themselves in the foot in an attempt to force change on people.

Microsoft hadn't solidified the basic method for drivers to interact with the OS until a month prior to release - thus the huge backlog in time for adjustments to be made to programs and drivers to accommodate. This is ALL on Microsoft's head. They should have solidified the driver architecture over a year in advance of release and this is why Vista was such a disaster.

That would have worked even better.

There was the driver issue, and that was huge. That's not really Microsoft's fault though.

There was also the default to aero-glass, which killed performance on PCs without a proper graphics card. That was their fault.

Then there was the permissions issue of their new 'security model', which you (if I recall correctly) needed to fix in the registry editor if you had any applications that wrote to any protected folders, again...their fault.

changed the command sets in the OS so the XP drivers would not work on the new OS. That was an arbitrary change by the MS management to force change and obsolescence.

The rest is true

Developers could have written Vista compliant drivers starting with Windows 98, they just chose not to. Now I completely agree they could -and should- have continued legacy driver support, but it's not as if this model was brand new for Vista (VxD to WDM).

pay Microsoft the Danegeld to have a copy of the command set and the code that allows it to work, then you have to write the driver to work with those commands. Now, a company that already has the command sets for Win 98, Win XP etc due to having already paid the Danegeld for that code can easily use that to write new drivers for the hardware they have. However, when Microsoft make the arbitrary decision to change the command set they wait a while now to make sure it will stay that way before they fork out the large sums Microsoft charge. This is because in the early days of Win 2000 and Win XP Microsoft made changes to the command set in SP1 and the companies had to spend time, effort, and money redoing all the drivers before the hardware would work properly. So now the companies wait a while to make sure there are no further changes to the command sets by Microsoft, then they buy the codes and start work.

It was not a case of legacy code to allow the gear to work with vista, it was a case of not making an arbitrary change to the internal Windows commands to stop them working with Vista. Hell, if Microsoft had stayed with the Industry standard command sets back in the mid 1990s we wouldn't need any drivers for any version of Windows since then, either.

Now, about the developers, would you spend a lot of money, time and effort on writing a lot of code before you were sure that it wasn't all going to be trashed on you due to someone else changing their mind while you're in the middle of it? Most developers wait until the details are solid, and that's what happened. It left Vista in the lurch until then. But the developers were only responding to the way Microsoft had trained them to respond.

What is with the rush lately to new OS? Blame Apple, they're good at coming up with new crap releases.

Even the open source community is buying into the hype of new OS versions every 2 years (FreeBSD took them decade to get to v5, in 3 years they jumped from v5 to v6,v7,v8).

Quickbooks releases a new software every year. Smartphones are released every year! I want to keep my phone for 3-5 years, what is wrong with that? The new technology is not better, it is just the same with a different twist.

Windows 8 is no different, no reason at all to buy into it unless you want touch screen stuff (and you can do that easily with Win7)

There's nothing new about this.

as I recall, the change was made for security reasons so that drivers no longer operated at as insecure a level. It's been a while, though, so my recollection could be off. But given MS's history of really working for backward compatibility in the OS, I would hesitate to assume that a move like this was arbitrary.

Otherwise companies like this
http://www.star-force.com/
wouldn't exist.
Star force uses a rigged CD drive driver to get access to the system, and even give them ability to shut your computer down.

thr players, including Microsoft, they established a set of Industry Standard Command Sets and the basic security protocols to go around them. Microsoft helped set them out. They used them for a little while and then turned their back on the Industry Standards as using them allowed anyone to create a program and application to work on ANY operating system - the whole aim of setting the standards in the first place; it did away with the need for drivers if all the hardware and software used them as set out in the standard. Then Microsoft found if they used their own set of command sets they could charge people for a copy to be able to write programs to work with that version of Windows, so they walked away from the Industry Standards. Since then they've changed the command set a few times, and charge developers for copies of the new sets when they make the changes.

It's purely a money raising gambit on Microsoft's behalf and has absolutely NOTHING to with security. What is being discussed her is the commands to utilise the standard hardware such as a print command etc as sent from the program to the operating system and then on to the hardware. The decision to change them from the standards was an arbitrary decision by MS management, and the decisions to change them since have all been arbitrary to increase profits.

Oh, I believe them when MS says it changes the OS security. The architecture is so buggy itself being responsible for crashes, and secuirty risks - MS has to come up with some gimmick to make people get the new OS in order to fix the old.

I don't have a problem paying for the fixes. I have a problem with all the OTHER stuff they do to mask the fixes, like changed interfaces which are more dysfunctional than before, and removed compatibilities in order to keep the rewrite cost down. Shifting the burden to the end user, in essence. These added changes are talked of as if new and improved, as security fixes aren't glamourous reasons for upgrade.

They're trying to fix the bad code, really. But they keep on doing it poorly. That took me 10 years to figure out, and now that I 'get' what MS is doing, I must leave MS behind. It left me behind, long prior. The 'new' will keep on having problems of the old, because they won't just FIX the old, but instead add new layers of rewrites to sell the fixes; and the new layers, add new vulnerabilities. They're not trying to gouge the customer. They're trying to keep the OS ffrom drowning.

When Win 95 came out they touted how safe and secure it was, then Win 98 was safer still, same message with Win 2000, and Win XP, it was the big reason for the Win XP SP 2 and SP 3, then Win Vista was more secure again, as was Win 7, and now more so with Win 8. It does make you wonder what they define as secure as there are already security issue with Win 8, as there has been in every version of Windows since Win 3.11.

Count my (very) large corporate parent as part of the 74% (an ironic perverse/inverse of the Romney 47%?). We are JUST moving into Windows 7 and Office 2010, and I can't see our ITO moving to Win8 any time in the next few YEARS. And you'll have to convince them that this is a good business/productivity move---and I'm not even going into the security side.

Ironically, MS seems to moving in an almost Apple'esque "consumer first, enterprise second" manner. Of course Apple never really had any (enterprise) to lose, so it wasn't much of a gamble. For MS, they might have bet the farm on this one, and only time will tell if it's brilliance or not.

some people still have this fly OS!

...into the corporate world are following exactly that path--consumers (especially at the C level) get the iPad and bring it to work and expect IT to integrate. Arguably, MS has a leg up here because the non RT devices will be easy to bring into the fold.

None of the Windows Phones or other devices will run desktop software at all, so I'm not sure what you are referring to. It isn't going to be any easier to use Windows-based tablets, etc. than Apple- or Droid-based devices, and given which of those have the higher market share, it's not hard to tell which is in higher demand (hint: NOT Microsoft).

We'll see what happens, but Microsoft really has a long ways to go to catch up in the mobile devices market and this new desktop OS isn't helping.

I wouldn't bother which of them has a higher market share today. I don't have a crystal ball, but now it starts looking pretty clear that soon it won't be Apple (I'd personally bet on Android.) The truth is integration and security will be serious issues in foreseeable future. And for ability to run full-featured desktop applications on Windows 8 tablet, that's just illusion.

If you are going to put out a new software program, what platform are you going to target? The one that can make you the most money. If you are going to have to build an app from scratch, you are going to target the platform that your potential users are using. Nobody is targeting Blackberry anymore. Or Palm. Noone builds apps for Symbian despite the fact that they have more than twice the marketshare of Microsoft in mobile. You look at your target market: Apple and Droid own more than 80% of the market and are pretty evenly split.

Noone goes fishing for the smallest fish in the pond.

You App is Cross Platform Compatible so you only have to write it once and not once for every platform.

Col

If market share mattered, then no one would have developed for anything but the Palm, because that used to have the vast majority of market share, at one time. The reason MS has so little market share now has nothing to do with market preference, but that MS abandoned the market. As it returns, the market share will shift back to MS. That is inevitable. MS never loses if it really wants something. The Zune lost only because MS did not bother to pursue.

"And for ability to run full-featured desktop applications on Windows 8 tablet, that's just illusion. ."
Assuming you meant Win RT, that is true. However, you can remote to a desktop and use it on Win RT. -so technically, you can use full featured windows programs on an RT.

according to the information from Microsoft Win RT has only a remote desktop client that ONLY allows someone to come in from a remote desktop to work the Surface. They say you can't control another computer from the RT. The Surface Pro is another matter.

I did it on a Surface RT at the Windows Store. (and I showed the Microsoft staff how to do it - because they didn't know it could)
I installed the Remote Desktop App on a Surface RT and remoted to a Win 8 laptop in the store.
I use the Remote Desktop App on my Win 8 machine at home to remote into my other Win 8 machine, Win 7, and Windows Home Server. They are all in the same workgroup.
Remoting from Surface RT to a networked computer on a domain requires some licensing. (search on ZDNet for Remote Desktop App & RT) Here's the text " Remote Desktop Client, which is available through the Windows Store. When this is combined with Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows RT devices (including Surface RT) users can access data and easily launch apps including legacy/Win32 apps"
I would give you the link but when I do, my reply disappears from TechRepublic. ARRRRRGH!
I have no reason to doubt that Citrix Receiver would work as well - even without Server 2012 or 2008 . A beta version is available in the Windows App store.

They say it's not possible at all, yet you can do it. I wonder, will it work without going through a server, say from the RT device to controlling your desktop as a peer to peer set up?

One of the posters on the ZDNet article said that you can.

The majority of them are experts with iTunes and not much more.

of any OT product. But what you've done with the RT is something the Microsoft tech staff back at MS HQ say can't be done, and one would normally expect a lot more knowledge by of the HQ tech staff.

if your requirement is to be able to connect to networked business resources, all three support Citrix Receiver but only RT can connect directly to a desktop without the use of a special client on the desktop.

according to the information from Microsoft Win RT has only a remote desktop client that ONLY allows someone to come in from a remote desktop to work the Surface. They say you can't control another computer from the RT. The Surface Pro is another matter.

NT

The reason I moved customers to W7,better malware protection(though I have had W7's infected by IE and Flash player flaws)support for SSD's(biggest reason so far),EOL of XP and full 64 bit support >4gb ram.

W8 has absolutely no compelling reason for a upgrade from 7.
None,zilch ,zero!

Kind of hurts the value.
You can build a tablet capable webpage in html5 WITHOUT Windows 8. If you decide to go with windows 8, you have to share your profits.

any big player today follows that model and it was not invented by MS but that's another question.
I think it is much more important to find opportunities to grow and the fact that we can now build, not tablet capable webpages but actually html5 apps that can interact natively with the OS is something new and I think you can't do it currently WITHOUT W8.

That's what I was thinking. FF and Chrome support HTML5; I suspect Safari does too, knowing Apple's disdain for Flash. Not only do you not need IE9, you don't need Microsoft.

I can't post the direct links, sorry.

This site shows compatibility vs browser - "The HTML5 Test"

This site has tables showing browsers vs elements supported - "When Can I Use"

Place a link between the Domain Name and the .whatever to break the URL and allow the post to appear. Like this

http://www.techrepublic .com/forum/discussions/102-396020?tag=forum-selector;discussion-table
notice the space between techrepublic and the .com? if you remove the space the link works.

Col

I usually can post links without any problems.
Occasionally certain threads won't accept them (like this one).

One recent thread accepted my post for a few hours, but it had vanished the next day (it didn't have any links in it).

as that's all in the browser, unless you're talking about a touch sensitive app for Win 8.

Windows 8 NATIVE apps written in htlm5 and javascript, regardless touch or no, will not run in web browsers on other OS. Those apps are running in Windows 8 environment and depend on native libraries not available to web browsers, particularly outside of Windows 8.

instead of being properly designed for the Internet, they're Win 8 specific apps utilising some html 5 capabilities.

The whole aim of using html 5 and having things written to the html 5 standard is to make them totally platform independent and work on any OS in any browser that's html 5 compliant.

Deadly Ernest is correct - the appeal of HTML or HTML5 is not that the web technology stack is great, because it's not. It's that the software will run in any browser (if you are judicious in your use of libraries). There are pre-AJAX web apps written in the mid 1990s that could still work today. I wrote a lightly ajaxy web app in 2008 that still runs, but we didn't use it for various reasons. Still, four years is not bad. I still have one script from around 2005 that would be useful given the right context. I'm using a crufty CMS from 2000 to run a website.

We apps have a long useful life. Recent trends to strip out more layout and formatting, and turn the server side into a REST service, will make the apps last even longer.

The web has become, more or less, the achievement of the goal of OO: cross-language remote procedure calls over the network, with totally encapsulated objects that communicate via messages.

Is this really so surprising? Most people usually only upgrade if they have to, by needing either a new computer or wanting something out of the new operating system. Of course, many times over people just get forced to upgrade the OS when they buy new. Because most people simply don't want the inside interface changed every time they buy new.

I don't understand the sudden big popularity of tablets. All a touchpad is, but a huge cell phone without a phone, and a laptop with no real features. In Windows 8, it almost looks like the tablets are a virus coming into Windows 8 features.

There is no compelling business case in most instances. I am sure over time as people become used to W8 and a few bugs are worked out it will happen.

Personally I am very interested in having a look at the Surface pro when it comes out. Mainly because of the touch centric OS and the purported ability of the device to integrate well into Windows based network infrastructure.

I would suspect this may become the thin end of the wedge as far as acceptance of Window 8 in our environment. That said I would think the earliest adoption for a standard workstation would be at least a couple years out. Assuming of course Windows 9 is not released in the mean time.

i have been in the IT business since 1959. First as an EE and later as a System Engineer. I am writing this on an HP laptop from home using Win7 and MS Outlook . I am planning to upgrade to Win8 with my next hardware upgrade in about a year. I will need the touch-screen support of the new hardware but my main reason for the upgrade will be the better and integrated cloud support of the new OS! -- George

When 2000 came out no one was going to move from 3.1 and 95 or they were just thinking of 98.
When XP came out no one was going to use it. It was full of spyware and other things that corporates did not, nay, never would want. Every one was going to stick to 98, or 2000.
When vista came out just plain no one wanted it.
When win 7 came out everyone had reason not to move to it and could not possibly see their IT moving to 7.
When win 8 came out. Ah, well you get the story.
Seems that people have severe memory problems regarding windows versions comments made when they are released. Particularly win XP was hounded. Vista we will not mention as nobody else does.
So we are all happy here with windows 3.1 and 95?

When XP came out it sat on the shelves for a very long time before it was started to be rolled out to business. After SP1 became available it started to be used.

However W2K and ME where never big on the Business Desktop all the business that i supported at the time stuck to either 98 SE or NT4 and didn't adopt W2K or ME at all.

Col

I recall it caught on quick at the places where I worked. It was more stable than NT4.

XP took a while to catch on, but that's because 2k was so popular.

XP eventually got in. Vista didn't. Then Win 7 got in pretty quick.

Win 8 will be slow, and not adopted. Win 8 SP 1 will probably be popular. I suspect the tiles will be the killer feature, believe it or not.

The average office drone today has lousy computer skills. We hit some high water mark in the early 2000s, and it's gone to crap ever since. The reason is web software, which makes many tasks so easy, also teaches people not to care about files, directories, drive letters, saving files regularly, managing names with naming conventions, and so forth.

At one time, it made sense to teach people these things, but lately, the value has declined because web apps hold so much of our data today. Good web apps auto-save, auto-file, and search.

Web app vendors are also going to promote the ignorance, because by taking care of the filing system for the user, the vendors create value and customer lock-in.

The next logical step is for desktop software to acquire these features, like auto saving.

Actually NT was more stable than XP.
The problem with NT was that it was not the same and would not run the same applications and games that XP would run.
So Win2K was the integration of NT and XP.
XP then turned into Win2k light. In effect we all now are using the NT branch instead of the Win 3.1 branch.

The cost of our recent upgrade to Win 7 was staggering.

Not just the cost of the new software, but the training required, the upgrades to Office 2010, the associated costs up upgrading all of our other programs to be compatible with Win 7, the downtime when our other programs weren't compatible with Win7 in spite of what the vendors claimed. Not to mention hardware upgrades, and massive hardware/software incompatibilities that had to be rectified.

Not going through that for Win 8!!! MS can just ***** themselves.

XP worked fine and lasted a long time. Not happy with the changeover to 7, but hey, that's progress. Win 8 is just another Vista waiting to happen IMHO.

should be talking to the people over at React OS as they're working on doing to Win XP what Linus did to Unix

http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

It may be cheaper to fund these people to finish the job quicker than to rewrite all their legacy software. It would also give them a long term solution to the Microsoft upgrade cycle of costs.

Too much of a learning curve. ROI to train users I think will scare most away.

50% said they may consider it in the future. stop hating on Windows8

or of any use in the majority of work places.

Does anyone know if Windows 8 will support the classic windows mode as an option? If so then it should not be a deployment blocker.

that doesn't mean someone may not develop a third party app to overlay on Win 8, as it's not yet clear if this is possible or not. However, the MS material on Win 8 makes it clear Win 8 will NOT run any Win 32 APIs at all.

So far, all the Win 32 apps I have tried under Win 8 Pro run just fine. I can continue to use VS languages to develop for it. They are all desktop apps, just as with Windows 7. The difference, however, is that these are not Metro/Modern UI apps, and won't run under Windows 8 RT--a consumer platform.

MS is say they will not bring the Start menu back (the single big factor that everyone is harping about), but there are quite a number of third party alternatives already. Here is one list:

http://www.howtogeek.com/127699/6-start-menu-replacements-for-windows-8/

The start screen is easier to organise into useful groups and can still be accessed with a single keystroke (Windows key). The default startup opens the start menu so you can choose what you want to do including pressing the enter key to go to Desktop if you place it top left.

My habit was to press Win, then start typing, then use the arrows to move through the matched programs. That still works.

Enterprise usually waits for a period so what s the big deal? Where's the story? We're still on XP where I am, and just getting into Win7 modestly.

I can't believe there are so many doubters of touch technology. Get with it; you dont need to use it and it doesn't negate a keyboard and mouse. Why are there so many folk can't see it as a positive enhancement? Did we go through the same drivel when they added the wheel to the mouse?

I will look into Win 8, but I feel pretty sure it wont be implemented at my work for at least several years, they are just rolling out Win7 to replace XP at a huge cost. At the time they will start thinking about upgrading, if ever... it probably will be to something after Win8 or another platform all together.

MS should just give the market what it wants not what it thinks will benefit MS and DRM's concerns. Roll out a Classic XP without the bells and whistles taking away cpu power and gumming up the works, or lose to Linux eventually. What in the hell were they thinking they could pull off this time around I don't know, but people will only stand so much corralling. Nobody wants to be forced into what they will use on their PC and how they will have to use it. After all, isn't self empowerment what a PC is all about anyway? XP Pro will run everything better so far than anything else out there, leave it alone!

While I am sure that Win 8 may be nice for tablets and smart phones, I just don't see how it is an "improvement" for a desktop. We already have millions of people wearing wrist braces caused by mousing. Imagine the shoulder harnesses and neck braces needed after reaching up to a desktop touch screen and swiping across the whole screen 8 hours a day for a decade. Sure, you can use your mouse and keyboard instead of a touch screen. But the huge swiping motion needed to navigate the strip of tiles on your screen would also cause ergonomic problems in the long run. As we get larger and larger screens, this problem is amplified. I would prefer to have hideable quick launch bars with "tiles" I want grouped together. Hmmm, what OS had that feature? Oh yeah, XP.

now they want you to have it close enough to touch anywhere on it. Just see how you 23 inch or 26 inch monitor looks at that range, it's damn big.

nor does a touch screen make Windows 8 performance more efficient. So the point is moot.

you don't have a touch screen?

It supports touchscreen.
It also supports mouse, stylus, trackpad, track ball, touch pad, wacom graph pads, touch mouse, gamepad, and keyboard.
You can navigate Windows 8 just as easily with mouse.

which says it's designed around a touch screen, and they added on some mouse and keyboard capability etc as well.

Now, since Microsoft tell me their product is designed around a touch screen, I have very little reason to think they're lying to me about it - but then, they do lie about so much other stuff, so they may be lying here as well as part of their marketing push, and you could be right.

Designing something from the ground up with touch in mind is not the same as touch-centric.
Windows 8 was designed for both touchscreen and mouse input.
If it was touch-centric, it would be easier to use touch input over traditional input and that is not the case.
To prove it, use Windows 8 on a computer without a touchscreen.
You can navigate on it just as easily with a mouse - and usually more efficiently.
The Metro style Start screen slides back and forth with the scroll
wheel just as easily a finger swipe - and probably quicker because presumably, the mouse is closer to your hand.
When you are on the desktop, the mouse works better than touch because legacy programs were not designed with much attention paid to touch. Most business programs are legacy programs - not apps designed for the Metro screen.
To get back to the Metro screen, whip the mouse to the lower left corner of the screen and Start pops up - well, would ya look at that?! It's in almost the same location as the ol' start button. and it pops up like auto-hiding the task bar. (since windows xp?)
To shut down using the mouse, whip the mouse to the lower right corner, click settings, and choose the power button. That is not any more complex than using touch input and touch input is slower.

- This is a discussion about Windows 8 - not RT
RT is more of a tablet with an optional keyboard. Hence, more closely designed for touch.

Considering the sluggish economy and the uncertain future, what is the compelling reason for the upgrade? All of the focus has been on Microsoft's attempt to compete with Apple, not how the new OS will improve the bottom line for organizations using the OS.

Microsoft management want more of your money so they can ask for a bigger bonus. That's the only reason for it.

not much different than your article on vista:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/sixty-percent-of-it-leaders-have-no-plans-to-deploy-windows-vista/797

Windows 7, if configured right, will be as good as windows 8

Last week, I received and attempted to install Windows 8 Professional upgrade on my laptop, and having failed at that, on my desktop.

I had to get the Windows 8 Professional full to install Windows 8 on my laptop after doing a wipe and it took three times to do it. One of the things I found is that Windows Defender locked up and caused some problems for the 168MB upgrade to Windows 8 (and this was just after the immediate official release of Windows 8, mind you). I turned off Windows Defender, did a "repair" on Windows Update.

After trying it out for awhile with what should be considered a "pristine" system with absolutely no third party add ins, I found the interface annoying (but then, I don't have a touch screen). I also found that Internet Explorer 10 crashes exactly the same way Internet Explorer 9 crashes on a certain website I access regularly. I found email from the front page rather charmless as a functional but austere method of accessing email. Navigating the mess is an exercise in frustration, but I can see that for naive consumers with touch interface, it could be a superior system (at some point I will get Surface RT, which, as I understand it, has all the power of a tranquilized gnat).

I did finally manage to pretty much restore Windows 7 on my desktop over the past week. I'm certain I won't miss some of the third party products I didn't bother to buy again to get back up and going. Windows 8 upgrade had some problems and got locked up (probably a Windows Devender issue). It decided to drop back to Windows 7... except the boot was taking 24 hours without any improvement. So I lost my system and had to rebuild Windows 7.

All in all, it was not a satisfying experience.

Now then.

If corporate IT has any of the same sort of experience I did, I would think that they would simply not want to spend the money to take the risk and upgrade from a perfectly well working product (there would have to be some very compelling reasons, I would think). It is unimaginable to take my frustrating experience and multiply it 10,000 times.

Perhaps, some of you are a lot more sophisticated than I am and could easily overcome the challenge and triumph.

Good luck to you all.

YOU WOULD HAVE THE INTERNAVEL.

Microsoft is clearly moving towards the much more dynamic market of mobile and ubiquitous computing. The innovative interface devices (kinect, surface, touch-based for tablets and smartphones and even more to come) proves that.
At the time being, it is hard to foresee who's gonna win in such a hard market: there are two strong competitors currently covering the whole area (Apple and Google Android). Probably, in the long run, Android will make it. But Microsoft seems to have a different idea.

The future of what you can do with your O.S. is confusing. Those cheap upgrades may come back to bite you. I HIGHLY recommend you read the conditions before you upgrade or purchase windows 8 any version.

I know dozens of highly-respected, very conservative international corporations who wouldn't move off XP if 74% of their user base wasn't rebelling, so this is no real shocker. Also, Win8 has been available for a whopping....7 days? Hardly the timeframe within which corporate executives make any sort of educated purchase decisions. So, at the least, this article and its headline are just hype. We'll know in the next 24 months what the real impact of Win8 will be, and it's anyone's guess at this point.

One final thought - I was an IBM intern in 1991. Our exalted Branch Manager wouldn't debase himself by doing "secretary work" (e.g., typing on his very own desktop mainframe terminal). The relatively new PCs were a running joke among nearly everyone over 22 years of age in the corporation. It's safe to say that about 99.9% of organizations had "no plans to deploy" PCs...ever. I wonder how well that prediction turned out?

The first of the three betas was released about a year ago. IT departments were looking at it long before the final RTM version. We've had plenty of time to make decisions about the Pro version. The RT version and the Surface tablets may reveal something new, but those are separate platforms and not upgrades to or replacements for existing systems.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. Nerdy guys in IT departments were looking at Win8 pre-release versions, it's true. Those same nerds generally have NO impact on the decision to role out major software overhauls in big companies, which was my point. And, while some higher-level execs -- who are the only folks who will make this decision in most large companies -- are aware of the OS and its potential advantages/disadvantages, the overwhelming majority of higher level executives a) aren't aware of this beyond the MS advertising, b) have no idea how it might or might not impact their organizations and c) probably could care less. Big companies don't usually get big by taking unusual, bleeding-edge risks, and this is no different. So, regardless of IT's take on this thing in the early days, much, much more time will be needed before older and wiser minds make the decision whether or not to spend multiple millions of shareholder dollars to upgrade. That's easily 2-3 years out from today.

We were tasked to check Windows 8 immediately after the first beta, and have retested it after each new release.

Taking a look at it just seemed like the professional thing to do.. I'm not sure where tms123 has worked, but few CIOs have the time to do their own testing. Indeed, CIOs shouldn't be wasting their time testing products. Their jobs are to be looking at the strategic picture. That's why they pay nerdy IT types to test the products and report their suitability.

Windows 8 is a consumer-oriented operating system and it is not significantly faster than Windows 7. There is no compelling reason for the enterprise to upgrade its systems outside of its normal lifecycle upgrade schedules. Which means that, in any given year, the enterprise will replace between 20% and 33% of its computer hardware. Few enterprise-class business will fall outside a three-to-five year lifecycle so your 74% figure is just about where we should expect it to be.

For 2012-13, most enterprise customers who buy hardware pre-loaded with Windows 8 will downgrade to their standard Windows 7 build. A few of those new machines will be left with Windows 8 installed for testing purposes and, in a few month, the IT department will do a thorough evaluation and start developing a "test" build for Windows 8 in order to determine how they might benefit from an upgrade. In a year to eighteen months, I think you can expect that those numbers to be reverse

This is expected for one because it's a new OS and most organizations may not have the budget/time/staff to thoroughly test the new OS with their systems/processes. Additionally, the push towards the touch interface may put people off.

The way I see it, Windows 7 will be the new "Windows XP" meaning that a lot of organizations will be using this OS for many years to come just as those have and continue to use XP on a daily basis.

I installed Win 8 Pro to see for myself the good, bad, & ugly.
Ugly :The Win 8 desktop has NO Start Menu...you must add a shareware replacement.
Bad: The new "Metro" Apps navigation on a desktop PC is poorly designed.
Good : The only good App is the Reuters News Videos.
Windows 8 is not ready for desktop prime time.
Better to install Windows 7 Pro for now.

Oh.. it's the Xbox 360 operating system! Can I play Xbox games on my PC now?

We just finished migrating the last of our user base to windows 7 primarily driven by hardware replacement. We plan to remain on Windows 7 and will likely skip Windows 8 altogether unless there is a compelling reason to upgrade. So far this reason has not presented itself.

I haven't found a persuasive answer to the question "How does 8 improve 7?"

My desktop's display is a non-touch screen. Experience with light pens tells me that using a touchable vertical display 2 1/2 feet in front of me is impossible. Reaching over to it a few times is OK, but then the human arm increases its weight to 85 pounds. (Is anyone else here old enough to remember light pens?)

Computer programmers -- being people, more or less -- think that "change" equals "improvement". Ain't so. (I use the Classic theme on Windows 7. Why? Because I like it. Tell your marketing people.)
Regards, Bob

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record but I have been using Windows 8 on a convertible tablet for several months and I recently upgraded from Win 7 to Win 8 on my home desktop.
If the reason why business are shying away from Windows 8 is because they think it is "touch-centric", then they know little about Windows 8.
I don't have a touch screen on my home desktop yet I navigate around the OS very quickly and very easily.
When you are on the Start (Metro screen), the scroll wheel scrolls very quickly though the screens horizontally. The right and left mouse buttons still work. The same keyboard shortcuts also work if you like to use them too.
Calling it "touch-centric" makes it sound like too much like touch is required. It is most definately not.
There are other more important reasons why most companies (like mine) do not plan to deploy Win 8 but most of the reasons are the same as why they took their time deploying Windows 7 from Windows XP or Win 2000 from NT or Win XP from Win 2000 and Win 98.
Most businesses are not bleeding edge when it comes to operating systems because they can't be.

I agree the touch capabilities seem to be causing some confusion, with some assuming they're use is mandatory. (I object to them mostly because they're enabled by default, even on non-touch systems, but I have the same complaint with W7. If you don't want them wasting overhead, you have to manually disable them.)

However, the scrolling behavior is going to blow several minds where I work. Frankly, many of my users have never figured out the scroll wheel when it was simply a vertical movement tool, choosing to drag or click scroll bars as they did before scroll wheels were introduced.

I don't know what percentage of your users know keyboard shortcuts, but it isn't many of mine. Microsoft has been discouraging keyboard shortcuts for years. I say this because they removed the underlines from beneath the menu commands. I can think of no other reason to do this than to attempt to hide their existence.

When I took a Windows 3.0 course many many years ago, the instructor said to the class, "Ok, now click on the icon with your mouse."
The guy sitting next to me picked up his mouse and tapped the icon on the CRT.
At that point I knew I was in for a long day.
but this does go to show that touch is more intuitive than the mouse as an input device.

Regards,
Don Qixote

the computer said "You've got mail."

My outlook on Windows 8 changed due to 3 things:
1. I upgraded a Win7 laptop to the latest version and was surprised at how much faster the computer went to sleep and woke up, restarted, and overall programs load faster and run faster. After getting an SSD, this is the best 39.99 I have spent.

2. I read someone at Microsoft say something about the Metro Start screen being a HUGE Start button. When I began thinking of the Metro screen as my Start button menu instead of an 'alternate' desktop then it started making sense. And I really love throwing the mouse to a corner and clicking to open a menu - better than pointing at a spot just off the corner! And once you are on the Start screen if you need a seldom used app or Windows component, just start typing the name and there it is. Just like the Win7 Start but better.

3. I tried the 'Classic Shell', a free replacement Win7 Start button because I know some people won't be happy without the button. This is more configurable than the Win7 Start menu and will make people feel right at home until they realize how easy the Win8 Start screen is.

Like everyone else, I'm not surprised. I bought Win8 Pro because I got a good deal on it. (Retail box was $40 at Staples.) But now it's sitting on my desk still in the shrink wrap. I have no plans to install it. There is no compelling reason to do so. I might have just wasted $40. I can see most businesses thinking the same thing; "Why should I buy this?" It's hard to come up with a list.

Do you often buy things you do not intend to use merely because you can get a good deal on it?
Have you thought about seeing a therapist?

Have you ever considered that that is exactly why Microsoft is giving it away for $40? Every day people buy stuff that they don't need because it is a good deal. While most people learn to not be influenced by low pricing many are and I would guess that most have slipped up and made an impulsive purchase at least once because they thought that it was such a great deal. Selling this product for $40 smacks of desperation on Microsofts part to me.

Yeah, that's why Windows even became popular back in the late 1980's. All those apps with the OS on the desktop, 'free'. It wasn't free, but seemed so. The low price will get people to try the OS, that's a time-honored way of admitting you want people to change, so they will LATER buy the higher priced stuff, after becoming used to the OS.

Thus I too will do as you, and buy a copy (but of System Builder, which is 1/3rd the cost of what will become Win8 Pro retail). And then it will sit on the shelf. Nota Bene: if you want to buy a retail new copy of XP Pro today, it costs about $300. A company through Amazon was suddenly selling out its last five copies of that GENUINE retail version (replete with inventory control tab) for only $150, so I snapped up two copies. I believe $150 is what I paid for XP Pro when I first got it at Sam's Club, back in 2006. The just-purchased ones have the same blue-and-orange retail packaging, holographic disk, etc.

So yeah an INVESTMENT deal, if a good OS long-term, as it will keep its value.

And now mckinnej has Win8 Pro ready to pounce,

Your headline that 74% of business rejected Windows 8 is contrary to your own survey. According to your data, only 23.8% have actually rejected Windows 8. The largest group at 49.9% simply hasn't made up their minds yet. Since you did your survey in October with Windows 8 only becoming officially available at the end of October, it is way too early to start calling it a failure.

Go back and read a recent Tech Republic article about how the adoption of Windows XP went at first. Then wait a couple of years and look at actual data before making such strong conclusions.

"Touch" input is ideal for smartphones and tablets.
On a 27" screen, "touch" however, is not the answer.
Imagine for a moment sitting in front of a 27" screen and having your arm raised for hours on end just to do any work. You would have employees screaming Bloody Murder in no time at all.
Microsoft has been made aware of this numerous times since they proposed it.
Having a separate desktop UI would not be that difficult to create and would go a long way to make Windows 8 desirable for desktops.
Did they listen? It doesn't look like it; does it.

I'll always be a Windows user, but, I hope Linux or Apple really kicks M$ ass.

Microsoft needs to sell, obviously, but customers don't really need to buy what they don't think they need. And no company can artificially manufacture needs and consequently demand for its products or services. This means that Microsoft will have to restructure itself in order to fit current market reality. Or else. The same is valid for other pioneering companies such as Amazon, Apple, etc.

It is till DOS based, even if it is disguised. Whatever OS Microsoft puts out its is based upon IBM1400 and IBM DOS360.. This **** is 40 years old...What is required is a stack arquitecture, based upon the work of Robert Stanley Barton at California University at Berkeley.
No code modification during exectution. Virtual Memory without paging overlays. No register based addressing.
This would put the anti-virus firms our of business.
Steve Jobs had a plan to go is this direction. Helas, the ones loved by god die young. I mention Mozart and the French mathematician Evarist Gallois,
Business success is always based on mediocrity.. People and entreprises of all sizes buy what they can understand.
The work of geniuses is only recognized centuries after.Maybe today the equivalent unit of time elapsed is only decades.
The human animal is an imitator. Education is just imitation, or even worse perpetuation of long regognized errors like The Economic mistakes of the Great Depression. They will be perpetuade if Mitt Romney wins the next Election

IBM1400 is 50 years old.
I've never heard of IBM DOS360.

.

You lost your audience immediately, when you amply demonstrated you have no clue what you are talking about. Windows ME was the last DOS-based version, over a decade ago.

CrispusNevius is right, it is DOS based. When you first boot up, you are loading DOS. That is what has to be in BIOS, and MS gets royalties for all BIOS sales except for those running UEFI. And UEFI is only experimental as far as I know. So all PCs are still DOS based. Windows will never be any good until they get rid of DOS in BIOS, and have the drivers in firmwear. It would cut boot time by 98%, and make it impossible to hack with a virus.

The BIOS is it's own simple operating system, it is NOT built by Microsoft, it mostly just serves to find and run "something". Its expected that it runs an operating system. For this example, I will use Windows 7. Windows is then launched, Windows loads drivers for all hardware and takes over from the BIOS. Once Windows loads its drivers and kernel into memory, it loads its preset programs, first things like the registry hive database, then things like the GUI (explorer.exe).

Windows 95-ME were a bit different, they first booted into DOS, then DOS launched C:\windows\win.com which started the Windows bootup. Windows then took over and loaded drivers to control the hardware directly. Then it loads its preset programs, first things like the registry hive database, then things like the GUI (explorer.exe).

You are wrong. Every BIOS company has to pay royalties to MS, and contain some MS code. BIOS does not just run "something", but has a lot of required hardware standards, like SMBIOS tables, ACPI, MasterBoot Records, etc. that have to be in firmwear or consistent hard drive sector. The fact another operating system can be loaded later, does not entirely replace all these firmware dependencies, vulnerabilities, etc. For example, when a new device is plugged into the USB port, it still has to have its EPROM interrogated by firmware and the device added to the SMBIOS table. Windows does not do that. All Windows knows about is what pops up in the registry.

Thank you for your cogent post, kirk agustin. I've been explaining that to many people who are bamboozled by the RELABELLING of what remains at least some key DOS architecture, in Windows.

The first major departure from DOS, is actually in Win7, and I'll be testing Win7 for what DOS stuff remains, if any. Because my core applications are Lotus 1-2-3 templates I wrote 27 years ago, and nothing on the market beats what they can do. So when I consulted IBM, the holder of Lotus today, they said they can't 'guarantee' that the old Lotus will still work on Win7. So if not on Win7, then not on Win8, and you have to mess with Taos Computing or XP Mode (maybe) or DOSBOX to see if you can preserve a kind of sandbox or VM environment, within Windows. But of course you lose real windowing in Win8, so I'm not hopeful about Win8 working. (Need many windows open at once, not merely two or three.)

I'm sure that will come as a surprise to Phoenix Technologies and the other BIOS shops.

No, BIOS companies like Phoenix, AMI, Award, etc., are involved in UEFI because they are trying to stop having to pay royalties to MicroSoft and get rid of DOS in their BIOS. Right now they can't. They most certainly will NOT be surprised.

.

I have searched all over the Internet, and I don't find any place stating that the PC's BIOS is Microsoft's.

The CP/M code in the BIOS was started being used in 1975, while Microsoft didn't get the rights to the version of Q-DOS (a CP/M clone) they used in MS-DOS until 1981.

Despite looking and working very similar, they are NOT the same - it's like claiming the Apple iOS and Ubuntu are the same; they come as variants from the same root source, Unix, but are not a closely enough related to be the same, despite many functions still working the same way.

some easy references if you want to check them out are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS

full details are in the linked source notes in the articles, but the summaries are good enough to understand what's happening.

After using the beta, release candidate, and now the final product, I feel Win8 is a step backward. The whole GUI feels like Microsoft wanting to be like Apple and Android, but didn't know how to go about it. Therefore, they forced a touch interface into a desktop OS. I'm having to add 3-5 extra clicks to do things I normally have to do with a PC at work.

Here's a hint MS: Apple has a different interface for their tablets and their desktops...each one optimized for the device it's on. You should have done the same.

For quite some time now Microsoft is desperately trying to catch up with the market. From company that used to bring us cutting-edge technologies it morphed into one that's merely trying to react to innovations of others, completely forgetting (ignoring?) its core customers: the Enterprise. And Windows 8, with its tablet centric design, seems to support that idea.

Well, this bring a lot of conformity in the world of the OS'ses: the upgrade-policy looks a lot more now like Apple's. Let's do the upgrade, throw away old applications.

Nice logo, a Window with an apple stem...

We plan to purchase several tablets for support/field staff with the full version of Win 8 (not the ridiculous RT version); however, I suspect we'll be running Win 3.1, Win XP and Win 7 in the office until I retire! In most cases we simply cannot afford to port millions of lines of code to new platforms for little to no gain (and in some cases lost performance). It all boils down to $$$'s!!

They should keep listening to their own traditional customers first before trying to bring the Mac users back. The Win8 commercials are largely unfourtunate on showing a platform centered on parties and alcoholic abuse.

Most of the PC that now run Windows XP or Vista or 7 wont fulfill windows 8 hardware requirements. Is not just a matter of Capacity but features. There are 2 things;
One is the NX No-eXecute (NX) is a processor feature that allows marking of memory pages as non-executable. The feature allows the CPU to help guard the system from attacks by malicious software. When the NX feature is enabled on a system, it prevents malicious software code from being placed in accessible regions of memory to be executed when control reaches that memory location. Windows 8 requires that systems must have processors that support NX, and NX must be turned on and Most computer on the market did not fulfill this requirement.
This processor requirement wont impact customers on modern systems, or on systems that meet logo requirements for Windows 7 because these systems have PAE-capable 32-bit processors that support NX and allow NX to be turned on. Only a small set of customers who have Windows 7 running on very old 32-bit processors without PAE/NX support will be impacted.
Second The El firmware on your PC did not admit safe boot. This is Part of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Is a new Security procedure. and Most computer on the market did not fulfill this requirement.

I ran the Developer release on a three-year-old Dell D630 laptop, and the second beta on an equally old 755 desktop. The laptop required a BIOS upgrade, but that was the only obstacle.

Yes it is because your system has PAE-capable 32-bit processors that support NX and allow NX to be turned on, but not all of the old systems could have it

Win 8 runs very well on my 3 year old laptop convertible.

I don't know about you, but most people keep computers about 6 years before they become unreliable. No one buys a new computer every 3 years unless they work for Intel or something where they have to.

MicroSoft charges too much. I can buy a notebook with Windows 8 for $210. But they want $200 for Windows 8 alone. That is crazy! Computer prices are half to a third what they used to be, but Microsoft keeps raising their costs. If Windows 8 was a reasonable price, like $50, then we would consider switching. But with unreasonable prices, Microsoft comes off as unreliable, greedy, and not someone you can trust or want to lock into. These bizarre price differences shows illegal bundling.

In my Amazon shopping cart sits a System Builder version of Win8 for $99. Anyone who got a new computer since June can upgrace for only $15. You can instead download the software as an upgrade only, for $40, through January. You can't get Win8 as a standalone to deploy on any PC without OS, except System Builder.

Upgrading one Win OS to a later one is always a nightmare, so I'm opting for System Builder.

System Builder is for System Builders like Dell, HP and so on or that Mom & Pop Shop down the road selling White Boxes.

Part of the Price of System Builder is you provide the support when things go wrong not Microsoft. If you are an End User you should be buying the Retail Versions which makes M$ provide the support such as it is without cost.

Col

I've never yet heard of anyone getting any real support from Microsoft, even when they pay for it.

for any workplace to be considering migration to Win8.

Any IT professional with a brain would be reluctant at best at saying they had any plans to migrate their people to Win8 at this early in the game. It's a brand new untested product with a new UI.

I have no doubt that in five years, most places will have either migrated or have solid plans to do so. But these things take time and planning. Companies don't just jump on the band wagon when it comes to new OSs.

That's why MS is banking on early adoption by home consumers and OEMs to get things tested and the get people familiar with the UI and touch paradigm. Once people begin to get used to the OS (in a couple years) then they will be open (or even thrilled) to having it at work, too.

So, this article is proves nothing and is actually pretty pointless.

What will they have migrated to, Windows 9, LInux, or Mac?

Windows 8, of course. Windows 9 would be too new at that point, and neither Linux or Mac will ever make serious inroads into enterprise computing. It's simply not their target market.

Microsoft designed a product to compete with the Apple iPad. This is primarily an entertainment device. I know that there are a lot of individuals who take the iPad to meetings for note taking, and some use it as a platform for graphical presentations. However, iPads and their Android tablet counterparts are not fully capable of replacing a desktop computer (or laptop).

Bill! Do you work for CNN?

"Almost noone plans to deploy Windows 8". Then you click on the title to only to read Rejected: 74% of organizations have no plans to deploy Windows 8

So 26% is "Almost No one"? What if the organizational base worldwide constituted 500,000 businesses? That would mean 130,000 organizations would adopt. Seems like a lot to me

I am no Microsoft cronie but man...contextualize the issue please. It seems like you have already made a decision for me

deploy win 8 the first two bars make it clear they have no plans to deploy win 8.

The reason 26% is almost no one, is that a lot of people have to deploy Win 8 by default because it comes with new machines. That 26% probably did not intend to switch to Win 8, but simply accepted it by default, and did not go out of their way to switch the new machines back to Win 7 or XP. That is not a positive endorsement, but more of a "don't care" condition state.

have people telling the retailers not to worry about trying to sell them a computer with Win 8. Some are cancelling orders as they ordered when Win 7 was available and the vendors like Dell and HP and now shipping Win 8 only, despite the orders being pre Win 8 release with a notation 'wants Win 7 only.'

I was just trying to buy a new Dell laptop two weeks ago. I had a choice of Win8, 7, or Linux. Problem was, if I wanted Win7 32-bit, they wouldn't let me have 8 GB of RAM, so I didn't complete the purchase. All this was on Dell's own website.

web site and had a look at what they had. They have a series of page where you can pock and choose what you want in your computer - the home and business laptops and desktops only offered a choice of Win 8 versions. The servers did offer a choice Linux with their choices.

Today I checked the site and they now have a bunch of old systems with Win 7 or Vista and a few with Linux - but the newest hardware comes with Win 8 only.

I've had plenty of success with Dell's 'Outlet' for refurbs, scratch and dents, returns, etc. They still carry the full warranty.

Of course, I wouldn't purchase them for clients without their approval.

1) If you're buying a 32-bit W7, anything over 4 gig of RAM is a waste of money. 32-bit Windows won't use more than that anyway.

2) You could have purchased the machine and then added the RAM yourself. It's a cheap purchase and easy to install.

These statistics seem to confirm that common sense will prevail in the end. While Windows-8 may be a great OS for tablets and touch-centric devices; it just isn't oriented to the laptop and desktop format used by a vast majority of businesses. General businesses have way much too much invested in current hardware and software to just abandon it for something new and incompatible with what they currently possess. A few, small trendy "boutique" businesses may be able to afford the switch to touch-centric tablets and Windows-8.

We're a small business, and Win 8 looks like a real loser, so we have no plans to deploy. However, we replace computers on a fairly regular basis, and will likely have to buy 1-2 laptops next year. Those will inevitably come with Win 8 installed. It's a real hassle trying to administer pc's with two OS's, but if the Win 8 release is like Vista, there'll be no 'option' to get new pc's with Win 7 installed - So the effective cost of a new laptop will increase by $120 or so, the price of a new full installation of Win 7. Am I wrong about that?

Microsoft has already pressured some vendors to stop shipping new systems with Win 7, so you may have some issues next year.

Most businesses have a license to install Win 7 already and most businesses deploy machines from images.

those types of licences and settle for individual licences with the new systems as they buy them. And the person I was responding to sounded like a small business that operates that way.

There are computer resellers who will retain an image of your standard computer configuration and apply it to all computers you purchase through them.
One of the companies I work with offers this service for free when you buy your desktops and laptops (Dells and Lenovos in this case) through them.
Because they keep Dells and Lenovos in stock, the cost is the same as buying them directly from the manufacturer. You can purchase them with the current or the previous OS version.
You can order servers this way too. - Pre-assembled and pre-configured
It would be very cost effective even if you purchased 10 computers per year.
How small are we talking?
If you are smaller than that, buy a block of 5 Windows 7 licenses now.

is the service available everywhere in the world

but I can say that Windows imaging tools are free and Windows 7 is available for purchase now. If you have a license on an old machine you can put it on a new one if you retire the old one.
There are many solutions to remaining on Windows 7.

between machines as out local laws allows for that. But you have to be technically competent enough to do or have a tech who can, and not all can. Then you also have the issue with activation from Microsoft when you do. I don't know when it is, but you can bet your bottom dollar there is a date when they will simply turn the Win 7 activation process off and say 'stiff you can't activate it now.'

I will admit that transferring and OEM license takes some work but it is not impossible. Google "Transfer a Microsoft OEM license" and you will find information.
That's why I recommend buying a retail license anyway -for home and especially for small businesses.

Or for as long as MS is.
Otherwise they encourage business piracy.
Does MS have the legal right to revoke a paid for license? If they do, do they have to pay the damages it causes?

system spat the dummy due to the number having been already activated count as technical support, as, according to past MS announcements, XP is no longer receiving free technical support and no warranty claims are allowed now.

As to your questions, the answers are No and No, but I take no bets on them keeping the activation process for XP active. Past activation systems didn't require on-line activation, in fact the early copies of XP didn't either.

and search for customer returns, scratch and dents, warranty repaired, etc. You can also see if a newer model have W7 drivers available, buy that model, and pay for W7 installation media.

Still running primarily XP. A couple of the older Boxes that bit the dust (beyond repair) came in with Windows 7.
As long as can keep those older machines humming away and serviceable as they are, will be sticking with XP.
Can't foresee switching to a touch screen environment and the need for Windows 8

What percentage of organizations had no plans to deploy Windows Vista when it was released? I think that comparison is more relevant, because it was the transition between Windows XP and Windows 7.

Yup! having come from Fortune 500 corporations with huge numbers of employees, and huge IT staffs, I suspect that few will roll out this version of the OS. However, as a very small business owner, who specializes in 21st century marketing for other small businesses, I suspect this OS will be revolutionary, once the leading edge techno thinkers explore the possibilities. The light, fast and integrated small businesses are going to provide massive competition to dinosaur corporations in niche markets within the next three years, and I suspect this OS will help make the differenct. I am personally pushing a 100 so to speak, and having to open my mind enough to study a few tutorials at windows.com keeps my brain in the game so to speak. (Contrary to popular opinion, I found a start button, and I love having my apps immediately on screen). P.S. the search tool seems vastly improved to me)

Well let's see... a new BMW just came out and we should all go and buy a new one...

Of course there is not surprise on this...

There is still 18 months of XP support from Redmond. Add that to heavy investments in Legacy software and a very uncertain business climate, a new interface and you soon see that most prudent businesses are going to sit on the fence for a while yet.

I've seen Win8, took me an hour just to figure out the most basic tasks. The Metro UI adds no value for the enterprise. People want to be able to multi task more, experience reliable systems with less crashes and compatibilities. Windows 8 like has been said is for the tablet and will remain that way.

Bring back the Start Menu with the task bar and I may consider win8 for our clients in 2-3 years time, otherwise, skip it.

Sure, people still using Windows XP are not in a rush to deploy Windows 8. But what I find interesting is that 1/5th of people not even using Windows are planning to deploy Windows 8. Maybe all of the naysayers are wrong and Microsoft has a better view of future markets than they do.