Windows 8 PC Sales: “Horribly Stalled”
A computer industry analyst talks about why:
There were certain decisions that Microsoft made that were in retrospect flawed. Notably not allowing people to boot into desktop mode and taking away the start button. Those two things have come up consistently. We’ve done some research and people miss that.
“In retrospect”? Really? They didn’t see that coming?
Before the official release of Windows 8, I noted:
Windows 8 will be released very soon, and when it comes out, we’ll see if Microsoft is completely stupid or not.
The test: whether or not Microsoft has added a tutorial to Windows 8. One which pops up immediately and tells people how things have changed, and how to get around the OS.
With Windows 8, the Start Menu is gone, cannot be brought back, and has been replaced with the now-infamous start screen. Going from one place to another now requires new actions which are not apparent because they are not visible on the screen. It is anything but intuitive to figure out that moving your cursor to a corner will bring up a screen you are looking for.
When I first downloaded Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I was hopelessly confused. I could not figure out how to get around—and I’m no n00b to Windows, either. There are bound to be lots of people who will be stymied when they see Windows 8, and who will hate the transition. “What?! I can’t bring back the Start menu? Why not?!?”
This was posted well after the beta release, but that’s just when I blogged about it. As I note above, when I downloaded the OS and installed Windows 8—on the very first day of the public beta—I immediately decided that Microsoft was insane to have removed the start menu and Desktop bootup, not to mention having new gestures be required without giving any tutorial, even a hint, as to what those were.
It wasn’t just an opinion: it was obvious. Clear as hell. I remember shaking my head and wondering what the hell Microsoft was thinking.
When I ask people who are using it, the basic response is, with a tablet, it’s pretty good. With anything else, it’s terrible.
How long before we can start calling this “Vista 8”?
I have Windows 7 & 8 on other partitions and I hate booting into 8.
Looks EXACTLY like what Windows 3 would look like if they ported it to 64-bit x86.
Plus their kanji character rendering looks worse than ass compared to OS X.
I’ve restored the start menu on the Windows 8 install at least but the whole Metro thing is a sick joke on an OS that’s called “Windows”.
The move to singe-screen UI does in fact support Apple’s attachment to a menu bar at the top of the main display.
On multiple displays, especially with multiple app windows open on different displays, Apple’s menubar has some usability issues. But with only full-screen apps, it works perfectly.
Windows no longer has a reason to exist, if it ever did.