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What the Heck is Happening to Windows? Article on Windows 8 Disaster

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MilesAhead:
@40hz I'd add to your list that developers don't like coping with Owner
Draw code just to have controls look normal on Glass only to have the rug pulled out with Windows 8.

Windows 8 seems pretty stable.  But I think Dos with the TurboVision character mode UI looked better than the Windows 8 Desktop programs.  It looks like somebody bleached the window components.  Really lame.

I also notice an obsession with forcing things to be run with elevated privileges.  Just because a program is installed under Program Files it cannot modify files in its own folder without either being run as administrator and/or the user taking ownership.  It's just silly.

mwb1100:
Where I think Win8 has fail is in the marketplace.  I'll be the first to admit that I haven't used Windows 8.1.  I tried out Windows 8 early on, but was unimpressed and found the new interface to be clunky and unfamiliar, so I went back to Win7.

I'll be the first to admit that this doesn't really mean anything except that I might not be willing to put in enough effort to give a better system a chance.  However, no one I know uses Win8.  My wife has never asked me if she should move to Win8.  No one in my office is using Win8.  No one has told me  that to solve a problem I'm having, I should move to Win8.x.

There's just no compelling reason to move. Some of that might be because it's difficult to come up with a reason to ditch a very good Win7. But I think that if MS had used the resources that they allocated to forcing a poor tablet-style interface onto the non-tablet desktop that they might have been able to come up with something that would give a good reason to move beyond Win7.

Instead they wasted those resources on a UI paradigm that no one wants on a desktop system.  Sure, Win 8.1 and beyond might not try to force Metro down our throats as much anymore, but Win 7 doesn't either. And you need to provide something more than that to give me and everyone else a reason to move to something beyond Win7.

MilesAhead:
@tomos it may not be noticeable with ordinary desktop programs but there seems to be a chink in the linkage when performing desktop window action taken for granted on XP to W7.  My guess is that Metro is the fly in the ointment.  Hotkey/Window class/clipboard code just seems to be much less reliable.  It's hard to define.  That makes me suspect there are lots of intermittent quirks that will be difficult to diagnose and adjust.

Maybe I'm just too pesimistic but it seems we just started catching up to the Vista/W7 differences and the house of cards gets knocked over again.   :mad:

Jibz:
I don't know, perhaps John Gruber has a point in saying that Windows 8 comes from their desire to try to have the same interface on all devices in the hope that that interface will be Windows. But phones and desktop computers are not the same, and are not used for the same things, so the same interface will not work.

TaoPhoenix:
We then saw 1-2 (depending how MS counts them for support rules purposes) Win 8 and 8.1 releases. Yuck.-TaoPhoenix (February 16, 2014, 09:45 AM)
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Have you actually used Windows 8 and 8.1...
-Innuendo (February 16, 2014, 10:56 AM)
--- End quote ---

Nope. Not used them. According to my design theory specs, I wanna see what that ex-engineer new CEO cooks up for Win 9 or even 9.1.

That skips Vista, 7 (tempting), 8, 8.1, and I'm banking hard that 9.1 might be the new Go To OS for Microsoft.

That's my path.

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