Friday, April 12, 2013

Windows 8 in free-fall

It seems, like I have been predicting since we first heard about it, that Windows 8 is a disaster area. MS is forcing something on their customers that nobody asked for and very few want, and even fewer can figure out. (The traditional interface combined with a Touch interface.)

I asked a friend of mine who is my go-to Windows expert (thanks Benny), he said:

I got a new computer with Win8 pre-installed, and had pretty big problems finding my way around. 
It was indescribably bad. 
There wasn't even any option to choose either the old or the new interface. 

It was complex just to shut the computer down. 
I could go on and on. 

It was even a brand new HP computer, especially optimized for Windows 8. And it took me over a week to figure out how to turn off the durn thing and install Win7. 

I was very angry, and my little son was sad, because it was his computer. 

Another friend has told me that there isn't even a web browser which is really usable with only the touch-interface. How much more basic a flaw could you dream up? They've been working on this for over 3 years, and even the web browser does not yet work properly?

You may have heard the new reports that PC sales have taken the biggest dip in history, and there's general agreement that tablets and Windows 8 share the blame.

I suspect this is one of those times where such a disaster can only happen in company which is so big that the brass is totally out of touch with users, and everybody else are too afraid to stand up and say that something won't work.

3 comments:

Stephen A said...

My friend who still uses Windows had pretty much the same opinion, he is rapidly transitioning to Xubuntu using a virtuallized copy of Win7 when needed.

I haven't noticed in that I switched over to Linux nearly a decade ago, only firing up a virtualized copy of XP when I need to finalize a Word document.

The astounding thing is that MS hasn't realized that different form factors require different interfaces.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes indeed. I'd like to hear Steve Ballmer explain *exactly* which kinds of machines they imagine Win8 run on in the future, and how.

TC [Girl] said...

Well...there doesn't seem to be much point...from what I read in this article. Must be time to lay off a few more thousand employees that must have just been diddling around for "job security's" sake trying to come up w/something "new!" :-/