Is the end nigh? PC market freefall accelerates.

[Malo]

I've re-installed it on new hardware and called Microsoft, they had no problem activating the license again. Done that more than once over the years, has anyone here actually tried to do that, or do people just repeat what others say is Fact (tm) on forums?

I'm just repeating what is supposed to be the case with OEM licenses, nothing to do with forum bullshit or not. Whether or not it works may be subjective, situational, or just that MS doesn't care. Great if it does work.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Everyone is saying "just use the keyboard", but what about those of us who want to use the mouse? You know, that thing sitting on the side of the keyboard on desktops for the last twenty years? It seems that everyone who really likes Win 8 is saying "Ignore the GUI, use the command line" which kind of says it all about the quality of the GUI with regards to workflow and ease of use.

I mean really, trying to find a program that you want to run via a single mouse-click now involves keyboard shortcuts and text searches, remembering the exact executable name (rather than just having it presented to you), screen-fulls of unrelated metro icons to search through, etc.

It's just really clunky and off-putting to have to do so much work just to get to the point of running a program from an icon on your desktop.

What's worse, is it really wouldn't take much to fix, but MS seems to be ideologically fixed into this course of a touchscreen UI on the desktop.

It's actually far easier for me to find programs in the start screen versus the older start menu when not using the keyboard. No need to have nested folders. Every program I could possibly want to run is right on the start menu.

Heck, even if you don't use the keyboard (mouse to corner), it's 1 click to launch a program versus 2+ (nested folders, ugh) for the old start menu. The new start menu is more efficient in every possible way.

I just find it mind boggling that people have such a hard time with such a simple system.

I mean this isn't as difficult as programming a VCR clock.

And this bit to someone else. Seriously complaining that the start screen covers the desktop? Are you really looking at all of your open windows when you open up the start menu in Win7 or previous versions?

Perhaps I'm just the odd guy here that I only used the start menu in older versions of Windows in order to start programs. It's up, I click a program, then it's gone. The same with the Win8 start screen. It's up, I click a program, it's gone.

Oh noes, my deskop was hidden for all of 2 seconds. What am I going to do?

Regards,
SB

 

[silent_guy]

All the rational explanations make sense. But we have a tendency to like things at a lower level. MS botched that completely. It just doesn't feel right. It's really hard to argue with that.

 

[UniversalTruth]

MS seems to have fired the guy (Sinofsky) who pushed the Win8 ideas like a mad man. I think the future will bring some changes.

I remember this:

This person apparently is running an alpha version of this next iteration of Windows and has indicated that the company will be keeping the much maligned Start Menu as well as the overall Metro design.

Read more: http://vr-zone.com/articles/more-details-coming-out-about-windows-blue-/18522.html#ixzz2QbtVZT9w

The big problem is the Wintel duopoly and that those corporations don't actually have to care about maximum or optimal satisfaction of the customers. They know that you have to use their products even if you hate them and that's why they don't push good ideas but instead the mad ones.
So yes, if they don't make the required changes (Start button, return of Aero, eye-candies, optimisations of such stupid things as the placement of Shut down etc), I will leave Windows altogether as a platform. It is their choice.

But please, don't scratch your heads why people hate you and prefer Android-based devices.

 

[zed]

OT Wrt 8 yr olds. There's a preconception that they pick up new tech quicker. Whilst partly true (synapses in brain not so rigid or something)
Party this is due to the share amount of time they put into the new thing.

I'm willing to bet all my cash. Given a totally new thing to both of us. 1hr to play with it. A 8yr old kid with the same IQ as me. Old be more likely to complete a series of tests about afterwards correctly.
Reason - higher intelligence and more experience

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I think the Windows thing is MS trying to leverage their desktop dominance into phone and tablet dominance. It's them attempting to have one UI on all three systems so people are more likely to know Win8 from their desktops, and therefore more likely to buy a Win 8 phone/tablet (so they think). MS have not done the "forced Metro" thing because it's better, they've done it because they are trying to gain market advantage from putting it in front of everyone on their desktops.

However, it looks like Win 8 is going to end up another Vista, Zune, etc that just isn't accepted by the public in the face of better competitor products. MS will have another chance with the Windows Blue update/release in the autumn, but unless it's significantly better, I don't think it will drive PC sales.

Far more likely to drive PC sales is the Haswell launch. I've been waiting myself for the last few months for new hardware before building a new PC. It's coming up to my upgrade cycle, and this time I'm going for new stuff rather than the well tested stuff that is about to be superseded.

If Haswell's launch doesn't perk up traditional PC sales, then I think we can really start talking about a long term switch from desktops to tablets and smartphones. Having said that, just about everyone I know who has a tablet or smartphone also has a desktop/laptop of some sort, so maybe the smaller form factor is really an addition to the household PC, rather than a replacement.

 

[zed]

Has well? Hmmm I'm reasonably informed about tech but I know nothing about it. I assume a new CPU from Intel or mad. I'll Google afterwards. I think we can safely say the masses aren't waiting for haswell. Its not like the hype of Pentium or 386/486 or dual cores, is it. OK say it can double the CPUs effective speed. Well great and all but I can go out today and buy a CPU that is double mime today (prolly yours as well bouncing) hell I could buy something 10x quicker than what I have

 

[joker454]

If Haswell's launch doesn't perk up traditional PC sales, then I think we can really start talking about a long term switch from desktops to tablets and smartphones.

I don't know if Haswell will perk up sales either as preliminary benchmarks show another 12% range incremental speed improvement. So if you have anything Ivy or Sandy bridge (ie, anything from the past three years) then there is little need to get a new desktop pc. Haswell maybe will help tablets though, it seems like many are waiting on it in that space.

 

[swaaye]

I remember this:

This person apparently is running an alpha version of this next iteration of Windows and has indicated that the company will be keeping the much maligned Start Menu as well as the overall Metro design.

Read more: http://vr-zone.com/articles/more-details-coming-out-about-windows-blue-/18522.html#ixzz2QbtVZT9w

Windows 8.1 may boot to desktop and have start menu
http://techreport.com/news/24667/windows-8-1-may-boot-to-desktop-resurrect-start-menu

 

[Gubbi]

I just find it mind boggling that people have such a hard time with such a simple system.

People hate change.

People has bitched at every single release of a new MS OS.
Win 3.10/11 -> Win95: lots of bitching about new GUI
Win 95-> Win 98: bitching about bloat (and GUI)
Win 98-> Win Me: bitching about bloat and GUI and stability (rightly so)
Win NT 4-> Win 2K: bitching about everything from GUI to bloat to stability (until SP1 rightly so)
Win 2K -> Win XP: bitching about bloat and stability (until SP 1, rightly so)
Win XP->Win Vista: Hell-on-earth whining.
Win Vista -> Win 7: Almost no bitching, although Win 7 basically *is* Vista, - with more services loaded on demand and without the aggravating user-credentials escalation dialogs.
Win 7 -> Win 8: Hell-on-earth whining again.

Rinse lather repeat

Cheers

 

[UniversalTruth]

That is bullshit. If the change is for good, people will rather welcome it. It is quite obvious that Windows 7 is the better OS and people's opinion (not accepting the change for bad) is the ultimate judge

 

[digitalwanderer]

Then when Windows Blue, 8.1, or whatever comes out and it's back to the old Win 7 format all will be slowly forgiven. <sigh>

 

[I.S.T.]

I expect it'll be 8.2 or later before any major changes like that happen. 8.1 was partially completed while Sinofsky was still running the show.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Windows 8 is NT 6.2, so is Windows 8.1 Windows 6.3?, or still 6.2.

My rationale to think that Windows 8 is better than 7 is to consider that Vista is Windows 6.0, 7 is 6.1 and 8 is 6.2 ; similarly Windows NT 5.1 was better than NT 5.0 (though Windows XP RTM was a bit crap!) and Windows NT 5.2 even better than 5.1.

Hell I think I'd like to go back in time a few years and have Windows XP x64 installed on my computer, never tried it but I used a bit of Server 2003 32bit and it was good.

As for Haswell I think I would like it. Granted it's only some +10% improvement, but it's three 10% improvements piled together on top of Nehalem which still beats my poor Athlon II CPU.
One of the later news about Haswell was clock ratios that allows it to overclock again by increasing the "bus" speed (or rather the BCLK). We have no idea if this allows to overclock non K CPUs, but let's imagine you can thus overclock +20%, +25% or more a Haswell i3 or even Pentium on a lowest end mobo. At least, stratospheric single-thread performance for cheap (Z77 + i5 is affordable but not cheap, and overkill. I'd just want *Firefox* to run faster, and maybe Flash)

 

[liolio]

Though it is not a personal market issue, I wonder if MSFT realizes how much time is lost in the enterprises every time they change the UI of their products be it Office or Windows to have something that ultimately does nothing more than previous versions...

I find that enterprises are lagging more and more from MSFT release rate...

EDIT
To illustrate that is what happens when you change the UI on the daily working tools of a +45 year old (but younger are barely better) users with mild interest (at best) in IT and related technologies:

 

[Silent_Buddha]

People hate change.

Yup pretty much. Especially if it's Microsoft. They'll be cursed out if they don't change anything (Apple is leaving them in the dust, oh noes, even though Apple is copying most of the Windows stuff for OSX now days) and damned if they do change anything (WinXP Teletubby UI, Vista even more teletubby UI, etc.). I know some professionals that wish Windows still had the Win9x interface.

Meanwhile the majority of people appreciate the changes that make life easier in the OS after the initial 10 minute adjustment period. Although ribbons did take a bit to get used to in Office.

Regards,
SB

 

[Mintmaster]

I saw this article but I don't think it has anything to do with Windows 8. There is just little reason to upgrade one's pc anymore. I evaluated my current setup at home where I do extensive video editing and encoding, so I need all the cpu power I can get. Yet my office pc is still a 3 year old sandy bridge cpu. Because while Intel keeps making me want to buy a new motherboard, cpu and reinstall everything to get 10% speed increase here and 10% speed increase there, meanwhile I slapped in an ancient NVidia 560ti and got a 400% increase in video encoding speed, and can view video in realtime on the editing timeline even with lots of effects piled on, something still not possible with Intel's latest and fastest cpu's.

So I had to wonder, if I don't need to upgrade even though what I do for my business is very cpu intensive, they why in heck would the average person need to even bother when they just need it for typical daily tasks. Same with my gaming pc, it's also a 3 year old sandy bridge machine. I changed the video card once and will probably change it once again once the new consoles come out, and that's it. It will probably last for years as it is.

There just isn't a whole lot of need to upgrade a pc anymore.

This is a good point and well said, but there's one other thing: The bubble of netbook sales went past its peak a while ago and really plunging now:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130416PR201.html

Shipments of netbooks this year are forecast to amount to just 3.97 million units, a plunge off the cliff of 72% from 14.13 million units in 2012. The market for the small, inexpensive notebooks had steadily climbed for three years from the time the devices were first introduced in 2007, peaking in 2010 when shipments hit a high of 32.14 million units. Since then, however, the netbook space has imploded and gone into decline - fast.

I think some of the initial drop in 2011 and 2012 was compensated for by people buying cheap laptops that didn't qualify as netbooks (the reverse of what happened in 2009/2010), but now that market has mostly switched to tablets.

 

[Svensk Viking]

In previous Windows though, one could turn off most of the new stuff and get it looking relatively similar to the Windows one used before.
There's no such option in Windows 8 unless ones uses third party programs.

 

[Albuquerque]

I find that enterprises are lagging more and more from MSFT release rate

Enterprises will only stay as far behind as production support lifecycles will allow . Consider the old addage "why fix what isn't broken?" As an IT infrastructure manager, if I can continue to get maintenance and support for my product, and that product is still working exactly in the way I need it to, there's no good reason for me to replace it. Microsoft made their own bed in this scenario, as they (repeatedly) extended support for XP during Vista and into the beginnings of 7.

Now that XP has a "final" sunset date in 2014, you're going to see a ton of enterprises "catch up" simply because they can no longer get support for their XP environments.

 

[UniversalTruth]

you're going to see a ton of enterprises "catch up" simply because they can no longer get support for their XP environments

Don't confuse yourself. They will simply go for the Windows 7 which will have extended support perhaps till 2020. If MS continues to release false versions