Reason to upgrade to windows 8?

[supernovae]

Sure, and you're only talking maybe two or three grand for that setup. Of course, it'll still be destroyed in a week because oily fingers also tend to be gritty fingers; but hey, a replacement touch-screen is only maybe half a grand or so -- and they're sure to come down soon.

Costs aren't nearly that high.. there are x86 reference designs for a hair over 500 bucks, wouldn't need to be a speed demon and there are glove capable touch screens and nice covers you can use.. I was thinking for a slightly different roll than just changed oil greasy fingers, but you're right. Any windows 8 tablet works with usb or Bluetooth keyboard and mouse just as well.

And Vanilla's not much different from French Vanilla -- and yet there are some who hate the one, and love the other. Go figger.

?

The old desktop stuff works, I wasn't trying to pee in anyones Cheerios by being honest when I saying its still a very familiar windows under the hood that still runs all your old software as any prior version.

Ultimately, what Window 8 or any other piece of software needs is what the customers want. Judging by the lackluster sales, MS missed the boat on this one. They have me thinking about moving to Mac, and that's saying something.

It does what I want. It supports my legacy software, offers a very nice sdk to support touch and gesture based interfaces, it now supports arm systems as well and Microsoft optimized the performance, memory and cpu footprint of the os so it runs better and on more devices.

If you can switch to a mac or use an android or learn to use an iPad, you can learn windows 8.

Oh, yeah, that'll help me a lot when I'm banging out PHP code.

I code in pho, ruby, python, Perl, c#, sql and use visual studio as well as other ide's or even notepad++ still in windows 8.

Wow! That'll sure encourage businesses to adopt it! Yes siree, that cool voice/Kinect integration is just what enterprise users have been clamoring for.

Businesses will adopt it for built in thin client support, windows to go, built in app deployment, improved gpo support, active directory, hyperv support and improved performance on multiple mobile platforms and devices. I use it at work, its great for building virtual machine test environments are then provisioning then to the virtualization cluster or uploading them to azure.

Probably overkill for pretty much anyone for whom a computer is a tool, rather than a toy.

-Rich

I feel Ike I make more enemies than anything here.. I guess all I do is toy around all day for work..

Windows 8 offers a lot.. Ms needs to deliver with the blue update to remain competitive in the tablet workspace as well as increase feature and capability support in modern ui.

If you like win 7, stick with it. Not going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[RJM62]

I feel Ike I make more enemies than anything here.. I guess all I do is toy around all day for work..

Nah. Who the heck said you were an enemy? Just because we disagree on a blasted GUI? Pshaw. It takes a lot more than that to make an enemy of me, my friend.

Windows 8 is a fantastic OS under the hood. I agree with that. But many people, including myself, simply don't like the interface. And you know what? In the end, what customers want really does matter -- that is, if you want them to buy what you're selling.

It doesn't even matter if the customers are "wrong," if such a thing as a preference can be wrong. Whether they're right or wrong, it's still their money; and if a vendor wants to get that money, they have to consider what the users want.

-Rich

 

[supernovae]

Nah. Who the heck said you were an enemy? Just because we disagree on a blasted GUI? Pshaw. It takes a lot more than that to make an enemy of me, my friend.

Windows 8 is a fantastic OS under the hood. I agree with that. But many people, including myself, simply don't like the interface. And you know what? In the end, what customers want really does matter -- that is, if you want them to buy what you're selling.

It doesn't even matter if the customers are "wrong," if such a thing as a preference can be wrong. Whether they're right or wrong, it's still their money; and if a vendor wants to get that money, they have to consider what the users want.

-Rich

Yeah, don't mean to say people are wrong for their views, everyone definitely has their preferences. Windows 8 was different for me, that's for sure, but I'm intrigued enough to see where Ms takes it. I enjoy it on my phone, my surface has gotten a lot of use and when an app shines, it really delivers!

Honestly, after all these years in it, I'm not sure if anyone knows what they really want, things change and move so quick, sometimes I think back to the days when it was os2 vs windows 95 and people battled that out and laugh.. But now, computers are fashion and designer devices.. how did that happen?

10 years ago I wanted to throw Ms out the door because they just stopped trying.. now that I see something new and different and I see Google and apple starting to borrow some of the flat ui design I think hey may be on to something,, but they may be so big and slow that everyone else just ends up with the best bits and pieces in the end.

Apologize for poor grammar and typing.. did that on my phone, fingers too big and this spell checker hates acronyms and technology terms

 

[Palmpilot]

"Five operating system alternatives to Windows 8 and XP"

http://www.zdnet.com/five-operating...ows-8-and-xp-7000013765/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539

 

[CT4ME]

This article seems to represent a balanced view of the calculated risks of continuing to use XP
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/eu...you-run/1627?tag=nl.e101&s_cid=e101&ttag=e101

 

[CT4ME]

Confirmed... a Windows 8 update is coming... very likely to bring the Start Button back and give users a choice of starting up in the familiar Desktop. To be shown in June, and available later in 2013.

 

[Palmpilot]

Windows 8 hits 100M milestone, but usage remains low: Where's the disconnect?

"Summary: Microsoft sold about the same number of Windows 8 licenses in six months after release as it did with Windows 7. But its usage share stands at one third of what Windows 7 had in the same time. There's a disconnect between what's being sold and what's being used. Here's why."

 

[supernovae]

Windows 8 hits 100M milestone, but usage remains low: Where's the disconnect?

"Summary: Microsoft sold about the same number of Windows 8 licenses in six months after release as it did with Windows 7. But its usage share stands at one third of what Windows 7 had in the same time. There's a disconnect between what's being sold and what's being used. Here's why."

This usage share is tracked by some dwindling 3rd party tracking company that may in itself have dwindling presence. Wouldn't it be more concern to look at the inverse metrics of these 3rd party to show how Android is still a staticall anomaly in web traffic, having 0 marketshare for supposedly shipping zillions of tablets/devices? iOS is barely a blip and the hot & wild MacBook airs that people preach about have already been surpassed by Windows 8?

This is pure FUD.. so funny because I feel like i'm back in the days of OS/2 vs Windows 95 when everyone picket their battle lines for no real reason at all.. IBM gave up, DESQview vanished, Windows had some successes and failures and now that it's doing well again, people are hating it without even trying it. It's quite silly..

 

[Palmpilot]

I'm pretty sure that the author of that article has tried Windows 8.

 

[John221us]

This article seems to represent a balanced view of the calculated risks of continuing to use XP
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/eu...you-run/1627?tag=nl.e101&s_cid=e101&ttag=e101

There are already apps that don't support XP. Lync 2013 is an example. It requires Win 7 and above. This is how it works and why slow adopters eventually upgrade.

 

[RJM62]

This usage share is tracked by some dwindling 3rd party tracking company that may in itself have dwindling presence. Wouldn't it be more concern to look at the inverse metrics of these 3rd party to show how Android is still a staticall anomaly in web traffic, having 0 marketshare for supposedly shipping zillions of tablets/devices? iOS is barely a blip and the hot & wild MacBook airs that people preach about have already been surpassed by Windows 8?

This is pure FUD.. so funny because I feel like i'm back in the days of OS/2 vs Windows 95 when everyone picket their battle lines for no real reason at all.. IBM gave up, DESQview vanished, Windows had some successes and failures and now that it's doing well again, people are hating it without even trying it. It's quite silly..

With respect, I think the bolded comment is quite silly. As someone who uses a computer to make a living, I could give a rat's what they call the OS, what version it is, what company produced it, or anything else about it other than how well it inherently runs (stability, speed, resource utilization, etc.), how well it runs the programs that I personally use, and how easy it makes it for me to use them. Those are the only things I care about.

Win 8 passes the first test with flying colors, scores "pass" on the second (it runs most of what I use acceptably, and what it doesn't I can make work or find alternatives for), and fails the third because it adds steps in between my sitting at the computer and actually doing anything productive.

So all in all, it scores lower than 7, because 7 also passes the first test with flying colors, scores a little better on the second, and scores much higher on the third. That the third is based on my own familiarity with and preference for the the way Win 7 does things is perfectly legitimate, and my using that as a factor in my decision is perfectly allowable, because it's my money that's paying for the software.

Your assertion that there exists this great body of users who are deliberately depriving themselves of an operating system that would make their lives easier and more productive, for no reason other than their own stubbornness, is absurd. The truth is that for myself (and presumably most users in my position), Win 8 in its current form adds nothing, breaks a few applications, and adds additional steps for the user to accomplish the same tasks as opposed to Win 7.

Why, exactly, should users pay for a net loss in productivity? So their computer can look like a phone? So they can have a tiled interface hawking "apps" that they don't need and will never use, and which they have to deliberately get past in order to access a desktop whose design still adds additional steps to do the same things they've been doing for years because it removes the thing that they used to use to do those things?

You apparently have a true geek's love for computers. I did once, too. Now they're just tools; and like any other tool, I choose the one that helps me get my work done most efficiently. When one comes out that does the opposite, I don't buy it.

-Rich

 

[Palmpilot]

"Call it capitulation. Call it listening to customers. But whatever you call it, making Windows 8 more usable with expected coming Blue tweaks is a positive, not a negative."

http://www.zdnet.com/with-windows-b...-right-thing-7000015237/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539

 

[supernovae]

With respect, I think the bolded comment is quite silly. As someone who uses a computer to make a living, I could give a rat's what they call the OS, what version it is, what company produced it, or anything else about it other than how well it inherently runs (stability, speed, resource utilization, etc.), how well it runs the programs that I personally use, and how easy it makes it for me to use them. Those are the only things I care about.

I make a living on Computers as well. We also use them pretty thoroughly with home schooling.

Since you don't care a rat's what they call the OS, where does win 8 fail in stability, speed, resource utilization and how well it runs programs? How does it make it harder to use them?

Win 8 passes the first test with flying colors, scores "pass" on the second (it runs most of what I use acceptably, and what it doesn't I can make work or find alternatives for), and fails the third because it adds steps in between my sitting at the computer and actually doing anything productive.

Where does it add any steps?

So all in all, it scores lower than 7, because 7 also passes the first test with flying colors, scores a little better on the second, and scores much higher on the third. That the third is based on my own familiarity with and preference for the the way Win 7 does things is perfectly legitimate, and my using that as a factor in my decision is perfectly allowable, because it's my money that's paying for the software.

ahh, familiarity. That is definitely a valid concern. Preferences are perfectly fine, but they're preferences. They can easily adapt and change as you learn new ways to get things done.

Your assertion that there exists this great body of users who are deliberately depriving themselves of an operating system that would make their lives easier and more productive, for no reason other than their own stubbornness, is absurd.

How so? Isn't you advocating personal preference and an unwillingness to learn something new simply being stubborn?

You don't have to use windows 8, just as much as you don't have to hate it. That's what I find absurd. Windows 7 still has a life left on it, you can skip windows 8 until they really hammer out the new UI..

The truth is that for myself (and presumably most users in my position), Win 8 in its current form adds nothing, breaks a few applications, and adds additional steps for the user to accomplish the same tasks as opposed to Win 7.

It adds a lot.. It's got a smaller memory footprint, better Disk IO, Better multi-tasking, Faster boot, better disk management, better kernel, MinWin is universal between server 2012 and Windows 8. You have HyperV so you can virtualize old legacy applications if you need to as well and I haven't even scratched the surface of other features. What applications broke? What processes require more steps?

Why, exactly, should users pay for a net loss in productivity? So their computer can look like a phone? So they can have a tiled interface hawking "apps" that they don't need and will never use, and which they have to deliberately get past in order to access a desktop whose design still adds additional steps to do the same things they've been doing for years because it removes the thing that they used to use to do those things?

Now this steps into absurdity... I can think of dozens of ways that the new start page increases productivity. How about universal search, universal share, tiles that show what you should or could be focusing on and much more.. Metro is young, barely scratching the surface of its features or full destiny and Windows Blue being made ready for the next developer conference expands the API & features and MS has made it apparent they plan to do this yearly, so whatever may be lackluster know could be improved if people weren't just naively writing it off.

You apparently have a true geek's love for computers. I did once, too. Now they're just tools; and like any other tool, I choose the one that helps me get my work done most efficiently. When one comes out that does the opposite, I don't buy it.

I love technology. I use a lot of it to solve complex problems.. hundreds of Linux VMs, a few windows vms, lots of ipads, androids and desktops and tablets and cell phones.

I remember the day when new technology used to excite people and they felt compelled to learn and try something new. Why is it that Android or iOS can do something different that people need to learn but heck, when MS does it "screw them, they moved my f****n cheese!!"

I'm not here to say Windows 8 is perfect by any means, but this person who was confused as all could be last November figured it out and enjoys it. So does my family.. my 5 year old, 8 year old and my wife.

It really rings true of the battles of 1995.. 2000.. 2003, 2006 and for as long as ms remains around. There were a LOT of people who wrote off Windows 7 as failure and doubted all the sales figures and announced the year of linux

 

[denverpilot]

It adds a lot.. It's got a smaller memory footprint, better Disk IO, Better multi-tasking, Faster boot, better disk management, better kernel, MinWin is universal between server 2012 and Windows 8. You have HyperV so you can virtualize old legacy applications if you need to as well and I haven't even scratched the surface of other features.

All things they were forced to do because other OSs had already done. The real solid feature of Win7/8 that no one else touches is BitLocker. The rest of that stuff in the above list is old-hat for any other OS already.

And half of it's gobledeegook anyway. "Better multitasking"? You mean someone tweaked the kernel scheduler again? Yawn. The vast majority of computing problems today come from being I/O bound, not CPU bound.

Boooooring list. To anyone who's done this for a long while.

Whoever brought up Lync 2013... Install it with Office 2013 and then attempt to find a way to remove it completely.

You can't without registry hacking and reboots.

It's way too tightly coupled to the OS, even under Win7, for a chat box that's not even as smart as AIM was a decade ago.

 

[iflyforfun]

Personally, I would be willing to pay fifty or a hundred bucks a year to keep getting security updates for XP. Since there are millions of people and thousands of businesses still using it, I wonder if there are enough people who feel the same way to make a viable business case for offering such a service?

I'm in complete agreement and have about 20 employees plus my own computer that I would like to keep on XP.

 

[supernovae]

And half of it's gobledeegook anyway. "Better multitasking"? You mean someone tweaked the kernel scheduler again? Yawn. The vast majority of computing problems today come from being I/O bound, not CPU bound.

Well, they addressed both, but I still find for consumer devices, everything is still CPU bound - from gaming to encoding music/movies to working with huge spreadsheets or whatever it may be.

Boooooring list. To anyone who's done this for a long while.

What were you expecting to happen? They took a revolutionary LEAP with Metro and you didn't even mention it. Windows Blue coming out this year shrinks the footprint even more. Microsoft has managed to get the same kernel on ARM, X86 on PC, Tablet and now Phone devices and its expected the next xbox 360 will have the same kernel too. Pretty impressive, albeit a little later than they promised. (The 3 screen promise, what 12-13 years ago now?)

I mean seriously, you can code native apps in C++/C#/Java Script/HTML5, the new API is pretty straightforward and consistent across all profiles.. it was lacking in some respects to peripheral & Bluetooth support but that's being addressed with Blue..

Lets keep going too.

* Microsoft account synchronization - Synchronize your settings / app configs by attaching a Microsoft account. Your favorites are synced across all deviceses you login to.
* Multimonitor support - finally got that taskbar across all displays and you can active the start page on any display you have active.
* Much improved task manager
* Family Safety built in - reporting/analytics of computer usage from games to web to whatever you want to track restrict.
* Native USB 3.0 support
* Intelligent networking, metered internet support, wifi/broadband/mobile awareness.
* Hybrid boot / quick boot / instant sleep
* finer granularity on preemptive multitasking that leads to smaller memory footprints and better performance which meant wddm 1.2 drivers perform better and provide better user experience.
* Windows 2 go - boot off USB stick
* Hyperv hypervisor for full blown virtualization support on your desktop that is compatible with exporting to HyperV server or Microsoft Azure Cloud.
* Storage spaces - storage virtualization.
* Internet exploder 9 / 10.. Windows blue bring 11, which has some pretty sweet developer tools being incorporated and some pretty good performance / html5 compatibility
* skydrive synchronization / content / photo sharing
* app store
* unified search / apps/ settings through charms bar for EVERY metro app

ahh well, none of this still doesn't matter

Whoever brought up Lync 2013... Install it with Office 2013 and then attempt to find a way to remove it completely.

You can't without registry hacking and reboots.

It's way too tightly coupled to the OS, even under Win7, for a chat box that's not even as smart as AIM was a decade ago.

I have Lync 2013 running right now.. It does white boarding, file transfers, chats, group chat, voice calls and desktop sharing. it installed on its own, as most of our users are still running office 2010 because of compatibility with other products we use (oracle erp, salesforce crm etc.. etc..). The lync federation is a bit of a bugger at times, but it means you can also use pidgin or whatever chat client you want or federate out to gtalk clients..

Salesforce chatter makes Lync look like a pro, and anyone following the market knows MS is QUICKLY moving to federate everything around Skype so its only a matter of time to see lync progress as well.

Lync also runs well on my surface, ipad, iphone other employees android devices too..

 

[Palmpilot]

This guy thinks that Microsoft should separate the desktop and tablet versions of Windows 8.

http://www.zdnet.com/the-one-big-fix-that-could-save-windows-8-7000015339/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539

 

[supernovae]

This guy thinks that Microsoft should separate the desktop and tablet versions of Windows 8.

http://www.zdnet.com/the-one-big-fix-that-could-save-windows-8-7000015339/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539

Microsoft managed the transition from DOS to Windows, Then Windows to Win32s and Win32 to .Net and now Windows 8 / WinRT.

Why would anyone write that windows needs to split into multiple versions for something Microsoft has been doing for ages?

 

[Palmpilot]

Why would anyone write that windows needs to split into multiple versions for something Microsoft has been doing for ages?

He gave his reasons in the article. How are those reasons applicable to operating systems that all run on desktop machines?

 

[denverpilot]

What were you expecting to happen? They took a revolutionary LEAP with Metro and you didn't even mention it.

That's because it was only revolutionary in the Windows world. A "webish" touch-screen interface with automated updating of data from websites was done multiple times on other platforms years ago. Zzzz.

Windows Blue coming out this year shrinks the footprint even more. Microsoft has managed to get the same kernel on ARM, X86 on PC, Tablet and now Phone devices and its expected the next xbox 360 will have the same kernel too. Pretty impressive, albeit a little later than they promised. (The 3 screen promise, what 12-13 years ago now?)

Wow. Microsoft learned how to cross-compile. Impressive. Was doing that in the 80s and 90s.

I mean seriously, you can code native apps in C++/C#/Java Script/HTML5, the new API is pretty straightforward and consistent across all profiles.. it was lacking in some respects to peripheral & Bluetooth support but that's being addressed with Blue..

Great. More APIs. Because the same things were said about the APIs in XP. Whoop dee doo.

Lets keep going too.

* Microsoft account synchronization - Synchronize your settings / app configs by attaching a Microsoft account. Your favorites are synced across all deviceses you login to.

Been doing that on Mac and Linux for years. Nice they caught up.

* Multimonitor support - finally got that taskbar across all displays and you can active the start page on any display you have active.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA... wow... you're calling multi-monitor support done right... something new and exciting? Again, BTDT...

* Much improved task manager

Uhh, who cares? ps -ef works great... and has for over 20 years...
[/QUOTE]

* Family Safety built in - reporting/analytics of computer usage from games to web to whatever you want to track restrict.

Yawn. And creepy. No interest.

* Native USB 3.0 support

BTDT years ago.

* Intelligent networking, metered internet support, wifi/broadband/mobile awareness.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA... they invented interface counters?! Wheee... hot stuff there.

* Hybrid boot / quick boot / instant sleep

Again, playing catch-up. Haven't really had a problem sleeping any of my machines or having them come up instantly from sleep since the late 90s.

* finer granularity on preemptive multitasking that leads to smaller memory footprints and better performance which meant wddm 1.2 drivers perform better and provide better user experience.

Pretty sure Unix got timeslicing and how to tweak it right, ohh... somewhere back in the 70s.

* Windows 2 go - boot off USB stick

Already done that. Yawn.

* Hyperv hypervisor for full blown virtualization support on your desktop that is compatible with exporting to HyperV server or Microsoft Azure Cloud.

Oh goodie, they copied VMWare and they're years behind them. I'm sure that'll be wonderfully stable.

* Storage spaces - storage virtualization.

Christ, this list is long... been doing the above since Veritas Storage Manager in the version 3 days... glad to see Windows finally catch up. Solaris has had it native since the early 2000s.

* Internet exploder 9 / 10.. Windows blue bring 11, which has some pretty sweet developer tools being incorporated and some pretty good performance / html5 compatibility

Browser wars? Really? In 2013? Who cares...

* skydrive synchronization / content / photo sharing

Copied Dropbox and Apple. Years behind both.

* app store

Definitely copied Apple. Again, playing catch-up.

* unified search / apps/ settings through charms bar for EVERY metro app

Desktop search? Copying Google Desktop from seven or eight years ago?

ahh well, none of this still doesn't matter

There you finally got it right... hahaha... MSFT is playing catch-up on features and has been for a loooooong-ass time. Like I said, the only technical feature they got right that popped them above most other OSs in just one aspect of security is their disk encryption... everyone should have been doing that, so Apple released their version in a very short timeframe after MSFT did it. It has always been possible on Linux, just takes effort which most lazy folk won't put forth...

I have Lync 2013 running right now.. It does white boarding, file transfers, chats, group chat, voice calls and desktop sharing. it installed on its own, as most of our users are still running office 2010 because of compatibility with other products we use (oracle erp, salesforce crm etc.. etc..). The lync federation is a bit of a bugger at times, but it means you can also use pidgin or whatever chat client you want or federate out to gtalk clients..

Did you miss that I said AIM had all those features almost ten years ago? LOL... and "Federation"... yay... look... someone invented trusted IRC... LOL!

Salesforce chatter makes Lync look like a pro, and anyone following the market knows MS is QUICKLY moving to federate everything around Skype so its only a matter of time to see lync progress as well.

It's like watching the slow kid cheer himself on, watching MSFT get all these features others have had for years, and see their fan-base rah-rah'ing at it all. Haha...

Lync also runs well on my surface, ipad, iphone other employees android devices too..

I've got it on my Mac and my iPad... works well there also. In fact, connecting to Corporate/Hosted Office 365, the Mac works significantly better than the Windows 2013 client, with only slightly less feature set.

All that stuff in Lync...? Available from Polycom, Tandberg, and tons of others for at LEAST 20 years prior to MSFT deciding they'd put a video chat/whiteboard/mixed media client into their Office suite.

You should get out more. See the world. Some other OSs from time to time. Some other commercial products. Even some free ones.

Will MSFT have any real business problems over any of the above? No. They've always been behind. It's their MO. Copy other's innovations and claim them as interesting new features. That won't stop until Ballmer is tossed overboard.

 

[Palmpilot]

To be fair, I don't think Microsoft playing catch-up equates to the added features being a bad idea.

 

[denverpilot]

To be fair, I don't think Microsoft playing catch-up equates to the added features being a bad idea.

Me either. I just think it's funny there's folks that think these are "new" computer features in MSFT OSs... happens every MSFT OS release... someone starts touting all the "new" stuff...

... that other OSs have been doing for years.

 

[RJM62]

This guy thinks that Microsoft should separate the desktop and tablet versions of Windows 8.

http://www.zdnet.com/the-one-big-fix-that-could-save-windows-8-7000015339/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539

Which practically anyone with common sense has been saying ever since 8 came out. When you try to cram the same OS on too many different devices, what you get is one-size-fits-none.

Why so many dunderheads are so committed to the idea of a unified OS that runs on anything from a low-end smartphone to a high-end desktop is beyond me. They're different devices, with different hardware resources, used by different groups of people, in different contexts, to do different things. Why the hell shouldn't the operating systems be different, as well, each version exquisitely tuned to its particular device and mission, rather than being stretched on to the job like a cheap baseball cap.

You may as well say that it would be a good thing for the same engine to power my chainsaw, my washing machine, my car, my airplane, and the township's snow plows and salter trucks. After all, they all use rotational force to do their respective jobs, so why do we need all those different engine versions? Just use one and make it uniform.

-Rich

 

[JoeSelch]

Not sure what Win 8 works well on. But I've been sorely disappointed with it on a touchscreen interface. Absolutely nothing like the Android experience (and I don't mean that in a good way). With a mouse, no problem; but nothing revolutionary - meh.

 

[numl0ck]

FWIW: Microsoft will still make patches for XP, someone will pay/force them to. In the Navy, there is a large push to upgrade from Server 2003/XP to Server 2008/Win 7 however, I just completed an upgrade onboard a submarine from Windows 2000 Server/Workstation to 2003/XP and that ship has no upgrade plans (hardware or software) until 2016 or later. Patches will be around for XP for a looooong time yet.

That said, Windows 7 is a good solid OS - and I'm a Mac guy. I have no experience with Windows 8, but most of my IT colleagues hate it. We here in our lab have no plans on ever testing it, it doesn't seem like a suitable cooperate environment (again, no hands-on experience, just relaying what I've heard from trusted sources). Seems like it's a great interface for a tablet, but using a mouse to navigate through tiles?? It doesn't make sense.

 

[supernovae]

Me either. I just think it's funny there's folks that think these are "new" computer features in MSFT OSs... happens every MSFT OS release... someone starts touting all the "new" stuff...

... that other OSs have been doing for years.

All hat no cattle eh? I love how people dis windows 8 without mentioning anything specific as to what they're comparing to or with.

Was that huge post up there worth it? I mean, you said a lot of stuff without saying anything. Its obvious you have very little knowledge or experience with the Microsoft ecosystem and its obvious your fine with your pretty little world you live in.

It just amazes me you have to jump to insults, personal attacks and talking points to prove a point that you missed entirely.

If everyone did everything so much better, WIndows wouldn't be relevant and all you haters hate it for the silliest of reasons.

Keep on hating if that's all you got. This is freaking hilarious.

Your whole post is based on justifying your ignorance because there are other products available. No duh..

Linux has KVM, So Microsoft has HyperV
Linux has Open GL , Windows has Open GL and DIrectX
Linux has multimitor support, but its an embarrassment. What I can do with a 6 monitor setup in windows 8 smokes ANYTHING anyone can do even in OSX, AIX, Linux
Linux has logical volumes, so has windows, but Microsoft incorporated a new refs system to do it differently, so what.. its been in NT for years, its nothing new.
.Net is a virtual machine platform that almost EVERYONE In the world is striving to compare against.. Sun lots its first place here, Google is trying to catch up with its own vm in Android..

Should I mention more specifics?

I've been published, I speak on behalf of Linux, I've been published writing about Solaris and HPUX. I know these systems inside and out and I know Microsoft has played catchup but i'll also recognize when they're finally innovating. I was a regular in the Linux bible, os/2 unleashed, Linux unleashed and spent countless hours in the usenet groups of the day spreading the word about Linux .07 being available for download on my BBS and working with yggdrasil to do the first distribution on CDR and also a floppy distribution for GNU.

It's not that hard being open about new things.. its much harder to spend so much time being so concerned with something you apparently care nothing about to use.

heck, i'm getting ready to do some talks about using puppet to automate provisioning of oracle systems on Linux and how I extended the base system to include rapidinstall and opatch interfaces to expose to the ruby dsl so you can apply patches and build oracle environments without being relegated to exec statements and nasty rsp files.

but again, i'm not afraid to try something new and check out how far windows has come.

Do I expect any of my experiences to change your mind? no.. I just hope you learn to respect my opinions rather than shrug them off with nonsensical responses and pejorative hahahas as if YOU know better but don't bother to SAY anything better.

 

[denverpilot]

All hat no cattle eh? I love how people dis windows 8 without mentioning anything specific as to what they're comparing to or with.

I had no intent to attack anything but your assertion that MSFT made all that "new" stuff. None of it is new. None of it is revolutionary.

Was that huge post up there worth it? I mean, you said a lot of stuff without saying anything. Its obvious you have very little knowledge or experience with the Microsoft ecosystem and its obvious your fine with your pretty little world you live in.

Incorrect. Here, let me be more blunt. You're obviously new to all of this computer stuff if you actually believe MSFT's marketing BS. Same with any other commercial computer software vendor. To be a true professional you must see beyond the hype and look at the underlying tech.

Example: Active Directory. It's just a crappy implementation of LDAP. LDAP predates it by many many years. There's no magic in it.

As to your assertion about not knowing the industry, feel free to believe what you wish, but my first computer job was over 19 years ago and Windows had just barely gotten a mouse working to do something useful with it in a little graphical shell. Three OSs and at least two other graphical shells had already done that prior to their release.

It just amazes me you have to jump to insults, personal attacks and talking points to prove a point that you missed entirely.

You were claiming Win 8 will be awesome eventually, once they fix it. I was just pointing out that's standard MSFT MO. Release half-baked stuff that's a copy of the competitir's products and then tell everyone to wait for the updates. Nothing new there. Same MO as Windows for Workgroups (Novell Netware already did everything that software did, and did it better at the time), Win 95 was "the fix".

If everyone did everything so much better, WIndows wouldn't be relevant and all you haters hate it for the silliest of reasons.

I don't hate it at all. In fact I help admin a number of Windows machines. MSFT's Marketing Department beats everyone else on the planet, perhaps only tied with Cisco as a religion. And Cisco has been slipping for a while now. Routing packets just isn't that hard.

Keep on hating if that's all you got. This is freaking hilarious.

No hate here. Just trying to point out that computer pros see MSFT as just another option to do stuff. The rest of your post seems to just be a reaction to being called out on your tooting of the MSFT horn more than a reasonable response to the claims that all those "miraculous" MSFT implementations of bog-standard technologies weren't really new or even all that interesting to those of us who were doing that stuff before MSFT released them.

To make the point, you're espousing puppet in a future talk. In a couple of years, MSFT will announce they have a cool new systems management tool that keeps configurations and standardizes systems automatically. Under the good, it'll look exactly like puppet with AD integration. It'll also cost $10K for a site license. Be still my beating heart.

All I'm saying is nothing MSFT has done other than a very few things are all that revolutionary or new. You've decided it means I'm a "hater" whatever the hell that is. Who has time to hate OS makers in life? If you're convinced technology has changed drastically because of MSFT, there's really not much anyone can say to change your religion on the topic.

As always throughout my career, the platforms I work on rake in cash at an amazing rate, for zero capital cost for software, while the Windows team struggles to audit their licenses and figure out why no one paid the bill. They do good work but it takes two of them to every one of us. And they still had to ask me to set up their WSUS environment because they didn't have the bandwidth. ("Oh look. It's a package management proxy server with less features and a more annoying UI than any of the seven others I've deployed. Piece of cake. Here's a document describing the limitations I see in the first 15 minutes working with it.") Piece of cake.

Powershell... Hey look, Windows finally got something as useful as Perl! Heh.

Etc etc.

If you thought my post was a personal attack, you got the wrong idea. It was just facts posted to get you to think hard about your claims that Windows (or anyone else for that matter) is truly doing anything new in computing.

My first touch-screen interface I supported and installed in 1995 had all those pretty primary colors (I call primary color interfaces "Fisher-Price UIs" since they're usually designed at a Kindergarten user level...) and controlled the conference call back-lines for FAA and the U.S. Pacific fleet. It ran primarily under Microware OS-9. To upgrade the firmware we had to bring a chip puller and replace 20 EPROMs per board with roughly 20 boards in each VME chassis and then load 15 or so floppies into a 10 or 20 Meg hard drive.

It did pretty much what Metro does today, considering it was running on a Motorola 68030 or 68040 processor and 1/100th or less of the modern amounts of RAM in most low-end PCs. OS-9 is an RTOS with real pre-emptive multitasking which is one of those things in your list of "amazing" new stuff from MSFT in that there's "better control" of timeslices of CPU time. Ooh ahh. Whoop dee freakin' doo, as they say.

Like I said in my post, none of this is new. You added a whole lot more to that post (in your head) than was written on the page.

You love MSFT? Great. Pay your money and step right up for the Greatest Show on Earth. P.T. Barnum said it... There's a sucker born every minute. The post was simply a reminder not to be such a sap for their Marketing material.

Jay likes to get all dreamy about Google's stuff too. It's fun to watch y'all be so happy about stuff the computer "industry" overall offered long long ago...

Pardon me if you took it personally that those of us who've worked on ... (Counting them up here...)... Something like 15 OSs professionally ... And by OS, I mean significantly different ones, not versions of the same ones... Aren't all that easily bluffed about Windows or any other OS anymore. Last I checked, IBM Mainframe tech is still around and kicking.. Worked on one of those, too... Briefly anyway.

Executive Summary: Windows 8 is repackaged stuff I've seen before. Almost every bit of it. Glad you like it. I don't "hate" it. It's a new UI for the masses who'll mostly just be confused by it for a while. The Fisher-Price color scheme will help them believe it's user friendly.

Remind them of their childhoods or something while they hunt for new cat videos on YouTube.

Meanwhile I've got a pile of Asterisk boxes making BANK that don't even have a UI installed on 'em.

Consumer level computing is browsers and spreadsheets and e-mail. Bores the crap out of me, personally. Hasn't been anything new in that market for years. Just new UIs. Maybe flight sim tech. And a few revolutionary games.

Guess I'm old. I prefer my computers make me some money while I sleep and don't need the "ecosystems".

Off to go set up some startup and shutdown scripts for a new Java doohickus someone developed for the company...

Today's Herculean admin effort will be brought to you by 5 minutes with a text editor and three hours of paperwork to deploy it. I'm always impressed they pay me pretty well, for such deep technical prowess.

No intent to convey "hate" for anything MSFT. Just exactly what I posted. Yawn. Boredom.

Oh look! Their RDBMS does what Informix did in the 80s! Wheee!

 

[supernovae]

I had no intent to attack anything but your assertion that MSFT made all that "new" stuff. None of it is new. None of it is revolutionary.

I never made such an assertion that Microsoft was first to market, none of that matters to me.

Incorrect. Here, let me be more blunt. You're obviously new to all of this computer stuff if you actually believe MSFT's marketing BS. Same with any other commercial computer software vendor. To be a true professional you must see beyond the hype and look at the underlying tech.

Actually the more professional person wouldn't assume so much.

Example: Active Directory. It's just a crappy implementation of LDAP. LDAP predates it by many many years. There's no magic in it.

Active directory works fine, and I don't really care what predates it. Ypbind, NIS, NIS+, Novel Directory Services and many others have come and gone and all sucked in their own way

As to your assertion about not knowing the industry, feel free to believe what you wish, but my first computer job was over 19 years ago and Windows had just barely gotten a mouse working to do something useful with it in a little graphical shell. Three OSs and at least two other graphical shells had already done that prior to their release.

My first one predates that..

You were claiming Win 8 will be awesome eventually, once they fix it. I was just pointing out that's standard MSFT MO. Release half-baked stuff that's a copy of the competitir's products and then tell everyone to wait for the updates. Nothing new there. Same MO as Windows for Workgroups (Novell Netware already did everything that software did, and did it better at the time), Win 95 was "the fix".

I never said they will "fix it", I said they're continuing to improve and enhance it.. but that's moot anyway, you're disputing who did what first, I have no issues with that. I don't care who built the first car, first airplane or first computer, first cpu. In fact, i'm running an AMD right now, should I feel shame its no Intel?

I don't hate it at all. In fact I help admin a number of Windows machines. MSFT's Marketing Department beats everyone else on the planet, perhaps only tied with Cisco as a religion. And Cisco has been slipping for a while now. Routing packets just isn't that hard.

As a professional, I never recommend anything because of marketing

No hate here. Just trying to point out that computer pros see MSFT as just another option to do stuff. The rest of your post seems to just be a reaction to being called out on your tooting of the MSFT horn more than a reasonable response to the claims that all those "miraculous" MSFT implementations of bog-standard technologies weren't really new or even all that interesting to those of us who were doing that stuff before MSFT released them.

Again, none of what you said matters to me. This topic was never about firsts... what gave you that impression?

To make the point, you're espousing puppet in a future talk. In a couple of years, MSFT will announce they have a cool new systems management tool that keeps configurations and standardizes systems automatically. Under the good, it'll look exactly like puppet with AD integration. It'll also cost $10K for a site license. Be still my beating heart.

Actually, if you had bothered to research you would have seen that Microsoft has had System Center for a few years now which does similar roles. The new system center manages not only windows devices, but it also does Android and iOS.. but that doesn't matter, its not about firsts.. BUt hey, SCCM also does VMware provisioning! Dirty old Microsoft up to dirty old tricks supporting what customers ask them to support, gah..

also, if I want support for puppet, it probably costs more for puppet enterprise than Microsoft system center.. but hey, facts be damned lol.

All I'm saying is nothing MSFT has done other than a very few things are all that revolutionary or new. You've decided it means I'm a "hater" whatever the hell that is. Who has time to hate OS makers in life? If you're convinced technology has changed drastically because of MSFT, there's really not much anyone can say to change your religion on the topic.

Who has time to spend so much effort talking about something they keep on saying they care little about?

Mark my words.. The next versions of iOS and Android will all be losing skueomorphism and going to a more tile / flat UI interface.

As always throughout my career, the platforms I work on rake in cash at an amazing rate, for zero capital cost for software, while the Windows team struggles to audit their licenses and figure out why no one paid the bill. They do good work but it takes two of them to every one of us. And they still had to ask me to set up their WSUS environment because they didn't have the bandwidth. ("Oh look. It's a package management proxy server with less features and a more annoying UI than any of the seven others I've deployed. Piece of cake. Here's a document describing the limitations I see in the first 15 minutes working with it.") Piece of cake.

I've made my riches off Oracle.. its far from cheap. WSUS also used to suck terribly, but its improved to be somewhat useful, but luckily, WSUS isn't the only game in town. RedHat up2date sucks and they charge 25k to have your own satellite server. Early versions of Yum created GLIBC hell and were a disaster and apt-get used to bork every system it was on and sucked royally.. all of these package management tools are still in a state of flux and improvement and they're being greatly expanded on and abstracted out. Heck, I can do yum on windows now! werd!

Powershell... Hey look, Windows finally got something as useful as Perl! Heh.

Thank GOD Powershell isn't perl! lol.. Powershell is awesome and with great functionality into the WMI interface it brings a lot of power to windows, so much power that VMware also uses it as its default scripting engine/interface.

I'm a python and ruby dude myself.. mostly python but darn these management systems being built on Ruby!

Etc etc.

If you thought my post was a personal attack, you got the wrong idea. It was just facts posted to get you to think hard about your claims that Windows (or anyone else for that matter) is truly doing anything new in computing.

What is your point? What facts did you have? you wouldn't recognize anything Microsoft does as new anyway.

I've got a copy of Microsoft Xenix waiting here for ya

My first touch-screen interface I supported and installed in 1995 had all those pretty primary colors (I call primary color interfaces "Fisher-Price UIs" since they're usually designed at a Kindergarten user level...) and controlled the conference call back-lines for FAA and the U.S. Pacific fleet. It ran primarily under Microware OS-9. To upgrade the firmware we had to bring a chip puller and replace 20 EPROMs per board with roughly 20 boards in each VME chassis and then load 15 or so floppies into a 10 or 20 Meg hard drive.

See, there ya go.. Talking about something you have no intention to use nor any understanding of and writing it off as a fisher price UI because of your own negligence..

Metro is the interface to the WinRT runtime which is so much more than what than what is described above.. but hey.. I don't need to spell it out, you're not going to listen..

it did pretty much what Metro does today, considering it was running on a Motorola 68030 or 68040 processor and 1/100th or less of the modern amounts of RAM in most low-end PCs. OS-9 is an RTOS with real pre-emptive multitasking which is one of those things in your list of "amazing" new stuff from MSFT in that there's "better control" of timeslices of CPU time. Ooh ahh. Whoop dee freakin' doo, as they say.

It doesn't do anything what metro does today..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211377.aspx

and I won't even bother about all the unified architecture, 10 point multi touch, handwriting recognition and other features because ermahgerd, ms may not have been first in all of them, let me go verify with the first police!

You love MSFT? Great. Pay your money and step right up for the Greatest Show on Earth. P.T. Barnum said it... There's a sucker born every minute. The post was simply a reminder not to be such a sap for their Marketing material.

I love my wife and kids.. I enjoy windows 8. Why are you claiming again to not be making fun of me when you're saying stuff like a "sucker born every minute".

For the 25 bucks it cost me, I have all the features I need. Everything windows 7 does and more.. heck, HyperV was worth it alone!

Pardon me if you took it personally that those of us who've worked on ... (Counting them up here...)... Something like 15 OSs professionally ... And by OS, I mean significantly different ones, not versions of the same ones... Aren't all that easily bluffed about Windows or any other OS anymore. Last I checked, IBM Mainframe tech is still around and kicking.. Worked on one of those, too... Briefly anyway.

Who uses mainframe tech? what does that have to do with Windows? If you want to argue semantics we could argue that virtualization and Paas and Iaas is somewhat akin to mainframe, but that's an entirely different topic.

Executive Summary: Windows 8 is repackaged stuff I've seen before. Almost every bit of it. Glad you like it. I don't "hate" it. It's a new UI for the masses who'll mostly just be confused by it for a while. The Fisher-Price color scheme will help them believe it's user friendly.

Windows 8 is user friendly, you are not You are the one making it much more difficult than it has to be.. comparing it to everything it isn't, worrying about it being the first or the last to market, making fun of it as being fisher price..

Meanwhile I've got a pile of Asterisk boxes making BANK that don't even have a UI installed on 'em.

I've used asterisk as well, in fact, I had it running on my ASUS router for a bit, but cell phones made that moot. I don't have a UI on the hundreds of servers I manage at work either.. does not having a UI mean anything? nah..

Guess I'm old. I prefer my computers make me some money while I sleep and don't need the "ecosystems".

ok.. what does this have to do with windows? Obviously Microsoft and its customers have little problem making money lol.. i'd love to see you debate that.

Oh look! Their RDBMS does what Informix did in the 80s! Wheee!

So your Informix database can handle petabytes of data, does map reduce jobs and also has SSIS / DTS jobs / Integration services? cool!

 

[denverpilot]

Look bud. I didn't start this. You made a bunch of claims about how wonderful Win 8 is eventually going to be and I said, "yawn".

If you're convinced it's the wave of the future, great. I say that's religion based in very little fact. Vaporware isn't anything new to me. They eventually finish it, great. Whatever.

The reply about Asterisk was comical though... You've run it on a little router running a few phones? LOL.

I'm talking $1.5M in annual revenue with 20 old Dells. Real work. Not a toy router doing family or SOHO voicemail. 5,000 active phone lines on a slow day. And it's a slow year. The farm will scale to 10,000 without a hardware upgrade. We bought some new machines just to refresh ancient hardware last year. Not because we needed it.

I've used all the MSFT stuff, including the System Manager or whatever it's called. It's all mediocre knockoffs of more powerful stuff. It's cheaper on the consumer side and more expensive by orders of magnitude on the server side.

That's just their model. It doesn't bother me.

The only thing that bothered me was the claim that their stuff was better. It rarely is.

The point was, that it rarely is better, because it's COPIES of other things, someone else did first. Example: MSFTs first IP stack. Who wrote it? Oh yeah... BSD.

If you feel like someone saying that their stuff is copied, is a personal affront to you, instead of an accurate analysis of MSFT products, hey... feel free. Get all fired up.

It's fun to watch folks get all personally riled about tech that basically just transports and displays chunks of data.

It's why I pick on Jay's fanboyisms about Google too. The more folks think computers are magic problem solvers, the more they pay folk like you and me to make them do dumb stuff.

The more complex the network, server farm, whatever... the more money businesses lose as overhead to admins and new hardware and software licenses.

That Asterisk farm? Total software capital outlay, one developer for a year on contract to write a shim to talk to a Lucent PBX and one admin to restart it once every five years or so. And that's stretching to say it was capital spent for software. Total licensing cost? $0.

It's been cranking out cash for almost ten years.

Those are the kind of systems I like to work on. And do.

I avoid stuff with annual payouts to vendors who are off creating their "next big thing" and forcing upgrades. I get paid better and more consistently when someone isn't finding million dollar software licensing "mistakes" during due-diligence audits.

Have a ball with Metro. Doesn't bother me a bit. I'm messing with it and pretty unimpressed. Looks like a very confused UI to me. It'll keep a lot of help desk friends in jobs. Lots.

By the way, yum was a POS layered on top of the worst possible Linux package manager, RPM. It took both years to catch up to the stability and features of dpkg and friends. It's ok now. Not stellar. You can still paint yourself into a dependency corner. RedHat wasn't even the creator of yum, after all. A tiny little company building a Linux distro for Macs just up the road claims that particular fame.

Oh, and RedHat Satellite? Available free. Google Spacewalk. Who the hell would pay for that?

Took about three days to deploy, including documentation for our environment.

Total capital software cost? $0. Again.

There's virtually nothing a Linux box can't do for free and better than a Windows *server*.

We're running CentOS. It makes money in talented hands, and costs nothing. Not a single penny.

Most companies would die for that kind of ROI on their IT department if they really truly realized it is possible.

Doesn't get the CIO taken out to expensive dinners by vendors, though. Or let him/her say they manage a multimillion dollar IT budget.

Only if they're bottom-line driven do they ask if all that stuff can be done for free. Most come from Sales and aren't that bright.

The Office suite (even though it was a copy of WordPerfect and Ami Pro) holds the MSFT ship afloat. It triggers the OS sale. On the desktop, anyway. And lots of places don't mind Apple on the desktop nowadays too.

Oracle. Now they truly did some cool new stuff once. They got that cult following thing going for them in the 90s and have ridden that wave as hard as Apple, MSFT, or anyone. Interesting company, once.

MSFT does a great job re-selling other folks ideas. No argument there. Innovation? From scratch? Not much of that there. Some in small pockets.

I loved the "ten finger" touchscreen rant, though. Gosh, couldn't possibly have been anyone who did multi-finger touchpad support first and created "gestures"?

MSFT must have created that. Definitely not Synaptics making hardware to meet Apple's spec.

I'm sure now that MSFT has moved it to touchscreens I'll be finding all sorts of uses for sticking all my fingers on my monitor. Maybe they should up the ante to twelve fingers so someone else can join in in the next OS! ROFL.

 

[supernovae]

Look bud. I didn't start this. You made a bunch of claims about how wonderful Win 8 is eventually going to be and I said, "yawn".

You did start this.. and you're still escalating it instead of just moving along

If you're convinced it's the wave of the future, great. I say that's religion based in very little fact. Vaporware isn't anything new to me. They eventually finish it, great. Whatever.

Who said anything of the sorts? I said its cool and intriguing and quite honestly a lot of companies are copying it. Theverge.com uses "metro" elements for its online news, new versions of android are much flatter and rumor is that ios 7 is going to finally kill skeuomorphism in favor of the flat "metro" tile style ui.

as you say "whatever"..

The reply about Asterisk was comical though... You've run it on a little router running a few phones? LOL.

I've ran it in bigger installs, but to be honest, we run cisco and Avaya, asterisk doesn't support what we're doing with our call center. When I ran my online ecommerce business I used asterisks to do call routing, inventory lookups, shipping / tracking lookups and call support, but again, you wouldn't know because you're not asking and jumping to more absurd conclusions.

I'm talking $1.5M in annual revenue with 20 old Dells. Real work. Not a toy router doing family or SOHO voicemail. 5,000 active phone lines on a slow day. And it's a slow year. The farm will scale to 10,000 without a hardware upgrade. We bought some new machines just to refresh ancient hardware last year. Not because we needed it.

Am I supposed to be impressed? I've been responsible for systems and infrastructure bringing in 2,000 times that in annual revenue.

I've used all the MSFT stuff, including the System Manager or whatever it's called. It's all mediocre knockoffs of more powerful stuff. It's cheaper on the consumer side and more expensive by orders of magnitude on the server side.

Oh bs, you didn't even know it existed. And if you did use any variant of it, it was what, 10 years ago? its painfully obvious you live in your own little IT world without regard for anything else happening around you because you simply don't care and there is NOTHING wrong with that, i'm just dumbfounded why you don't care so much to come here and poop on everyone and everything else.. it makes absolutely no sense.

That's just their model. It doesn't bother me.

If it didn't bother you, why are you sitting here telling me how crappy/mediocre and knockoff things are?

The only thing that bothered me was the claim that their stuff was better. It rarely is.

I never made any such claim..

The point was, that it rarely is better, because it's COPIES of other things, someone else did first. Example: MSFTs first IP stack. Who wrote it? Oh yeah... BSD.

Who and what are you talking about? EVERYONE uses an implementation of the BSD stack for TCPIP but the TCPIP stack of today is a long distant relative. It's a good thing we standardized, who in their right mind would run a non standard stack that is incompatible? OSX as a whole is built around FreeBSD.. again, whats the point and where are you pulling this crap from?

If you feel like someone saying that their stuff is copied, is a personal affront to you, instead of an accurate analysis of MSFT products, hey... feel free. Get all fired up.

Why does this matter and why do you keep bringing this up when I have NEVER spoken about such? are you sure you're replying to the right person?

It's fun to watch folks get all personally riled about tech that basically just transports and displays chunks of data.

Its fun seeing you reply to great lengths posting things I've never mentioned, especially considering you are the one with no interest in the this thread or company whatsoever..

I'm merely just having an entertaining time pointing out the hypocrisy here.

It's why I pick on Jay's fanboyisms about Google too. The more folks think computers are magic problem solvers, the more they pay folk like you and me to make them do dumb stuff.

You just said your computers make you 1.5m, I've been at businesses where my computers make billions. I do this stuff for a living. It pays for my house, my kids, my family, my cars, my flying time, my hobbies, my retirement. If you can't be passionate about anything, that's not my problem. That is your problem

The more complex the network, server farm, whatever... the more money businesses lose as overhead to admins and new hardware and software licenses.

Absurd. What may be complex to you is easy to me.

That Asterisk farm? Total software capital outlay, one developer for a year on contract to write a shim to talk to a Lucent PBX and one admin to restart it once every five years or so. And that's stretching to say it was capital spent for software. Total licensing cost? $0.

Bravo.. want a cookie? what does this have to do with windows again?

It's been cranking out cash for almost ten years.

Those are the kind of systems I like to work on. And do.

Great.. again.. what does this have to do with anything?

I avoid stuff with annual payouts to vendors who are off creating their "next big thing" and forcing upgrades. I get paid better and more consistently when someone isn't finding million dollar software licensing "mistakes" during due-diligence audits.

That's great.. You know what, we're not in the business of writing OS's or even writing our own custom PBX.

By the way, yum was a POS layered on top of the worst possible Linux package manager, RPM. It took both years to catch up to the stability and features of dpkg and friends. It's ok now. Not stellar. You can still paint yourself into a dependency corner. RedHat wasn't even the creator of yum, after all. A tiny little company building a Linux distro for Macs just up the road claims that particular fame.

Bravo! you know how to google, I never said redhat invented it lol, redhat invented up2date.. my point was that nothing was perfect and I know yellow dog created yum, its freaking called YELLODOG UPDATER MODIFIED.

seriously? are we really having this discussion?

Oh, and RedHat Satellite? Available free. Google Spacewalk. Who the hell would pay for that?

Satellite server used to cost truckloads of money, and spacewalk is so terrible I don't think Redhat is going to continue to support it.. they can't get anyone on board with that project, and I know because I just meet the redhat engineering team who was talking about the other products they're trying to integrate with.

Took about three days to deploy, including documentation for our environment.

Total capital software cost? $0. Again.

I'm done.. this is must a waste of time. You feel strongly about your little "Free empire" and you know what, that's great. But it has absolutely NOTHING to do with anything being discussed here.

Lots of cool and amazing stuff happens with Linux, Windows, OSX, Chrome, Android, Windows Phone and iOS..

i'm not the one who has a problem dealing with it and I can't for the life of me see why you do..

 

[EdFred]

Oh, how I wish this would come to actual fisticuffs so I could video it. Two nerds fist-fighting on YouTube would get me about 34,000,000 hits in the first week.

 

[numl0ck]

Oh, how I wish this would come to actual fisticuffs so I could video it. Two nerds fist-fighting on YouTube would get me about 34,000,000 hits in the first week.

 

[CT4ME]

Nate,
You keep bringing up bits and pieces of computing that have been done by different people at different times. Nobody says Microsoft is any sort of wild innovator, they just take the bits and pieces, possibly improve them, round off the rough corners, and package them into something that can be used by Enterprises and individuals. They take on the burden of creating an environment that is usually pretty compatible with the past, and yet offers enough new stuff to make it useful. They generally have a plan on interfacing it with the past and the future.
The problem with the geeky types (you?), is they are happy to pick and choose little techy things here and there, without having to accept the burden of making sure the whole eco-system works, and have a plan for growing it in the future. That attitude is why Linux hasn't expanded like it was predicted. Even though everyone knows there are too many flavors of Linux, individual groups continue to pick/choose tiny little areas to improve/change, which result in even more versions.
Microsoft isn't perfect by any means, but they do understand Enterprise and consumers pretty well. They spend lots on research. They accept the burden of having Grand Plans, and trying to make everything work together.
Users don't care if one Geek did LDAP, another invented CMOS, and another improved PCMCIA... they just want someone to put it all together and work. And that it will work with the past, and have a path into the future.
(Shields up, Captain...)

 

[CT4ME]

 

[supernovae]

Oh, how I wish this would come to actual fisticuffs so I could video it. Two nerds fist-fighting on YouTube would get me about 34,000,000 hits in the first week.

Haha.. is this any different than the pilot rage that happens all to often here as egos rub? We could start a whole tv network

I come across people who are so obsessed with their hatred of Microsoft they often hate the people that use it. If no one points out the hypocracy of that we would just be wussy nerds instead of people proud to be whatever nerd they chose to be.

Critical thinking, Critical reasoning.. Its worth fighting for

THe irony of all this is that I use probably 100 or even 1000 times more Linux than windows, but windows still gets **** done hehe

 

[Palmpilot]

It's amazing how emotional the arguments over Windows 8 get. It's even worse in the comments on online articles.

 

[denverpilot]

You did start this.. and you're still escalating it instead of just moving along

Hmm. Pot. Kettle. Black.

Point was, and still is... MSFT stuff isn't revolutionary or even new.

I should have never iterated through all your babbling inaccurate points. You seem to take it personally. Which is really dumb.

Get over it. Enjoy your licensing fees.

 

[supernovae]

Looks like Microsoft will offer a public preview of Windows Blue update which will be Windows 8.1 on June 26th, probably just for X86, but would be cool if its the same for Windows RT.

What I know from leaked Images

* Enhanced Search - Search charm is greatly expanded /optimized much like global search from Windows 7.
* IE 11 - IE 11 looks to include a ton of new developer options/tools. More bookmark syncs / tab syn in both desktop and metro. Lots of tweaks/improvements & html5 performance updates
* Metro Control Panel - More options moved to metro ui from classic control panel
* More colors / customizations - Theme / color support enhanced - more customizations.
* More snap options - there are more snap - to screen options for metro apps
* Snap may support smaller resolutions (7" tablets rumored to be launching)
* Smaller Start page tile and larger tile options.
* Deeper skydrive integration
* Smaller memory footprint - continued kernel optimizations

Developer wise, I know WinRT is getting some new API's around Bluetooth but I don't know much else, supposedly a document is coming here soon from Nokia that describes the Windows 8.1 apis which is interesting because that may show some support of a potential nokia windows 8.1 tablet or further alignment of Windows 8.1 and Windows phone.

I fully expect the previously mentioned Aviation app from Jeppesen may be tied up a bit awaiting 8.1 because of the API's needed to support external ADSB/GPS receivers but only Jepp and MS know right now They could also be awaiting 7-8" devices or something else.

Oh yeah, supposedly kiosk mode (boot to desktop) and a start BUTTON are making a comeback but I expect the start button to just be a link on the start bar and not the older start MENU nested menu thingy. Mostly to help people who struggle with hot corners on desktop

So beyond the features I already beat like a dead horse, it looks like MS is doing a yearly improvement on the OS to keep it competitive and functionally strong and iron out issues quickly. The 8.1 update is slated for release later this year and will be FREE to current Windows 8 customers

 

[RJM62]

Looks like Microsoft will offer a public preview of Windows Blue update which will be Windows 8.1 on June 26th, probably just for X86, but would be cool if its the same for Windows RT.

What I know from leaked Images

* Enhanced Search - Search charm is greatly expanded /optimized much like global search from Windows 7.
* IE 11 - IE 11 looks to include a ton of new developer options/tools. More bookmark syncs / tab syn in both desktop and metro. Lots of tweaks/improvements & html5 performance updates
* Metro Control Panel - More options moved to metro ui from classic control panel
* More colors / customizations - Theme / color support enhanced - more customizations.
* More snap options - there are more snap - to screen options for metro apps
* Snap may support smaller resolutions (7" tablets rumored to be launching)
* Smaller Start page tile and larger tile options.
* Deeper skydrive integration
* Smaller memory footprint - continued kernel optimizations

Developer wise, I know WinRT is getting some new API's around Bluetooth but I don't know much else, supposedly a document is coming here soon from Nokia that describes the Windows 8.1 apis which is interesting because that may show some support of a potential nokia windows 8.1 tablet or further alignment of Windows 8.1 and Windows phone.

I fully expect the previously mentioned Aviation app from Jeppesen may be tied up a bit awaiting 8.1 because of the API's needed to support external ADSB/GPS receivers but only Jepp and MS know right now They could also be awaiting 7-8" devices or something else.

Oh yeah, supposedly kiosk mode (boot to desktop) and a start BUTTON are making a comeback but I expect the start button to just be a link on the start bar and not the older start MENU nested menu thingy. Mostly to help people who struggle with hot corners on desktop

So beyond the features I already beat like a dead horse, it looks like MS is doing a yearly improvement on the OS to keep it competitive and functionally strong and iron out issues quickly. The 8.1 update is slated for release later this year and will be FREE to current Windows 8 customers

All very nice enhancements if you happen to be using a tablet and like the Metro UI to begin with. Otherwise, not so much.

The question neither you nor MS seem to want to address is: Why not simply give users a choice which interface they like? We're not in the days of 40 MB hard drives anymore, when developers agonized over every byte. Nor do the actual programs and routines reside in the UI, anyway. It would be no big deal to provide more than one way to access them.

Microsoft's position seems to be one of stubbornness to me. They're attempting to force their users to switch to something that many of them don't like -- regardless of whether you or MS believe that "something" is better than what they're used to. It would be easy enough to give users a choice, but MS seems committed to not doing so -- even at the cost of these users answering Microsoft's stubbornness by keeping their money in their pockets.

The fact is that in the end, what's "better" is really pretty subjective; and like all vendors, MS needs to consider their customers' opinions in making their decisions, lest the customers withhold their money.

Microsoft's users range from a few who love the company and its products with fanboy intensity, to those who literally don't even know what version of the OS they're using. (If you've ever done phone support, you know this to be true.) Most Windows users fall somewhere in between. They just want the software they use to work right, and to be as easy to use as possible.

This lower saturation of fanboys means that MS can't get away with doing the things that Apple does. There would be Apple users camping out overnight in a monsoon to buy a new nail clipper if it had the Apple logo on it. Most Windows users, on the other hand, would shrug their shoulders -- if that much.

Look at history. Back when XP came out, Win98 was the dominant Windows among home users and small businesses. There also were an unlucky few who were running WinMe. Win98 had become so unstable and unreliable (and WinMe even more so) that I literally couldn't keep up with the demand for upgrades to XP. I didn't even advertise. People sought me out and paid my fees without question just to have 98/Me off their computers.

Why were these people so eager to upgrade? In most cases, because they had heard great and wonderful things about XP from other users who'd upgraded (or who had purchased computers with XP pre-installed). WinXP looked and navigated like the Windows they were used to using, but it was faster, smoother, and didn't crash half a dozen times a day. That was all they wanted, and XP delivered it. It also put a lot of really easy money in my pockets, so many were the people banging on my door wanting to upgrade.

Now consider this: XP followed a legacy OS that had become crappy (Win98) and an even-crappier then-current one (WinMe), so users had very good reasons for wanting to upgrade. But Windows 8 follows a very excellent OS (Windows 7), which most users like. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that they hate Win7 -- at least not with the depth of invective and abundance of profanity with which they described their feelings about 98/Me.

Consequently, Win7 users, as a group, are in no hurry to upgrade. But if Win8 preserved intact the Win7 UI as an option, neither would Win7 users be reluctant to replace "older" computers that needed replacement for other reasons, nor would businesses be worried about loss of productivity by employees, nor would anyone really have any particular reason to avoid the new OS. In fact, more sophisticated users would appreciate the kernel improvements and so forth. The majority would merely shrug, click or tap around the Metro UI for a while to see if they liked it, and then make a choice. Either way, no one would go out of their way to avoid Win8. There would be no reason to.

So what does MS do? They follow a stable, popular OS that people like and are in no hurry to get rid of, with one that is even better under the hood, but which has an interface that a lot of users simply don't like. Forget whether it's better or worse -- those questions are subjective, and they're also irrelevant. In the end, people's spending choices are based on what they like, and that's what matters.

What makes this all the more baffling to me, as I mentioned earlier, is that it really wouldn't require any great technological magic to make both UIs available to users, and to allow them to choose the one they liked best, or even to switch back and forth between the two depending on what they happened to be doing at the moment.

Yeah, making both UIs available would require some additional coding, but MS has geeks aplenty to do this sort of thing; and the cost certainly would not be so great as the reduced sales that are resulting from the avoidance of the excellent new OS that MS has created among some users (especially those in the corporate sector).

-Rich

 

[supernovae]

All very nice enhancements if you happen to be using a tablet and like the Metro UI to begin with. Otherwise, not so much.

The question neither you nor MS seem to want to address is: Why not simply give users a choice which interface they like? We're not in the days of 40 MB hard drives anymore, when developers agonized over every byte. Nor do the actual programs and routines reside in the UI, anyway. It would be no big deal to provide more than one way to access them.

They're not forcing anything upon you really.. 3rd party companies make tons of software to allow you to do pretty much whatever you want and for the most part these tools are free or super cheap.

an Operating system is a base for the creativity of the world to enhance upon.. At least with windows you don't need to jailbreak your OS to make it the way you want it.

What Microsoft did was made a new new OS that embraced the inevitable and supported all the legacy.. and while that was a huge leap, its something they felt they had to do or they would be irrelevant in the long term.

Because they're committing to faster updates, faster customer response and still remaining open, i'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Had they killed all legacy support and forced metro without building bridges and supporting all their heritage, I think the uproar would have been exponentially worse.

Oddly enough, windows 8 got rid of the silliness of 7.. no more 8 versions to choose from, you have RT for Arm and Pro for X86. No more having to choose between home, ultimate, pro for which one had which feature you may or may not need. The OS is a full blown OS now with virtualization, remote desktop/remote access, drive encryption and so much more right out of the box.