back to article Intel CEO thinks Windows 8 isn't ready, insider claims

To hear Microsoft tell it, work on Windows 8 wrapped in August and the final version of the new OS is already shipping to PC makers. But according to a source close to Intel, Redmond's closest hardware partner thinks the current Windows 8 code is still only half-baked. At a recent company meeting in Taipei, Taiwan, Intel CEO …

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  1. MachDiamond Silver badge

    consumer vs producer

    iPads, tablets and smart phones are fine if what you do is consume content. If you create content, then you need good input devices kind of like a keyboard and a mouse. Nobody has beat those yet. Yes, I have a 3-D mouse for CAD work and I love it.

    I do a lot of photo and graphics work. I wouldn't mind having a Wacom Cintiq, but I don't want to be putting fingerprints and secret sauce all over my monitor. I would be cleaning a touch screen every five minutes so I would know if I had some sensor dust or if the monitor was funky. The two things that aren't covered under warranty are the battery and the screen. Go ahead, teach your 5 year old to poke at the screen, I dare you. It was bad enough when it was just a display; now add a touch sensor and see how much they bugger you for on repairs.

    Apple has iOS for it's portable, non-laptop devices and an OS for laptops and desktops. M$ should consider the same route and not try to make them the same at the top level. A fondleslab and a desktop are going to be doing different jobs with just a little overlap. It's inane to try and force people into one mold for all of their computing. Corporates don't like radical change. Everybody takes too long to get back up to speed and the IT department racks up a huge amount of OT trying to service all of the issues with any new release (hint: bofh story line). M$ would be better off keeping the Start menu and having the option of other UI configurations. Some people will gravitate towards each, but the office will still function smoothly. Phase in, phase out.

    My setup: MacPro 4xCPU running OSX 10.6.8 and in VMware, Windows XP and Ubuntu. I need to live in all three worlds and this is the best way I could find to keep the number of kb's, mice and monitors down to a livable number.

  2. mark l 2 Silver badge

    personally i would say Windows ME was by far the worst version of Windows, although i never used anything pre 3.11. But actually 3.11 was pretty bad compared to the WIMP environments of the competitors products (no per-emptivive multitasking) but just comparing Windows versions to each other ME sucked donkey balls and was quickly dropped by MS but Vista managed to stick around for 3 years.

  3. Sil
    Thumb Down

    Not ready

    Having worked with both release previews and the final enterprise version I tend to agree, it is not ready:

    - Removal of start menu is annoying and gratuitious

    - Windows keyboard shortcuts don't always work the same depending on whether you are on the desktop or on Metro.

    - Metro / Desktop still isn't ideal with 2 screens. It has become much more difficult to place 2 windows side by side with 50% of the screen each on the second screen. Also menus that appear with a mouse position near a screen's edge are not working ideally.

    - Many buggy low quality Metro apps such as Mail/Calendar/Contact. Metro apps gives very little feedback whereas they crashed / are waiting for cloud data / or else. They do not respond well to being restarted. Some won't work at all after after a crash without completely deinstalling them and reinstalling them from the Windows Store.

    - Windows Store is horrible. It is unattractive, the information density is abyssimal and I can't see how it will scale to even thousands of apps. I don't have an Apple but I can't believe the itunes/whatever Apple store is that bad.

    - Most Metro applications are of no use whatsoever for keyboard/mouse people. Their interface are very bad (e.g. huge squares to represent each song; guess what happens when you have 10,000). Having tried the video music pictures apps, which are basically web store fronts, I deinstalled them and used Windows Media. I was disappointed to see that Windows Media ist exactly the same as before, e.g. absolutely no dev resources have been invested in enhancing "desktop apps".

    - Another case in point is Skydrive. The Metro Skydrive is useless because:

    A. It doesn't sync files with the computer, it simply download them when you click on them. e.g. it is a glorified web page.

    B. The UI is awfull. Wy reinvent the windows explorer with a Metro App that doesn't even have 5% of its functionality?

    So thankfully there is still the Skydrive Desktop app which integrates with the file explorer and does indeed sync files between computer and cloud.

    - As for me the biggest failures of Windows 8 is the double IE 10 with halfed-assed opaque Flash support. I predict an infinite number of support requests in this regard.

    - New driver models makes it necessary to get new unavalaible drivers in some cases. For example USB audio interfaces. I sure hope there are good reasons for that. Regardless, I can't do computer music under Windows 8 until the official consumer release of Windows 8 when most oem promised their drivers would be ready.

    - I don't see the point of charms. Case in point search. When I am in Outlook I am not looking for songs. When I use a video player I am not searching for documents. What is the added value of charmized search?

    Of course this post is unfair because it may well be that Windows 8 is a superior OS when it comes to touch. But like probably 90-99% of windows users I don't have a touch screen on either notebook or desktop.

  4. Nigel 11
    Unhappy

    One size does not fit all.

    Microsoft's big mistake is thinking that what fits a smartphone can also fit a desktop.

    I'm no Apple fanboi, but Apple knows this. An iPhone is not the same as an iPad and is absolutely different to an iMac, in UI terms.. True Apple fans go out and buy one of each, because all of them get a lot of UI things right, for the size and usage of each class of device.

  5. IJC
    Flame

    Shills & Trolls

    Why should any Windows user care about the opinions of a Linux Desktop user in relation to Windows?

    Why should any Windows user care about the opinions of anyone who uses the M$ label?

    Why should any Windows user care about fanboi opinions?

    There is always resistance to change. If you don't want to change stay with what you have. Microsoft will be supporting Windows 7 for years.

    For those of us who have a mixed environment of smart phones, tablets, laptops and desktops having one common UI across all devices makes a lot of sense, especially taken in conjunction with Office 365.

    Nobody has to adopt on day 1. Change when you are ready. Personally that will be sonner rather later.

    1. pixl97
      Mushroom

      Re: Shills & Trolls

      -Nobody has to adopt on day 1. Change when you are ready.

      Lots of people buy their computer from box stores. They tend to do dumb things like listen to the sales person about Windows 8 being the new 'hot sauce'. These peoples name is Default and their number is legion. They'll get the computer home and install some software they need for something and it won't work as expected. They'll call the support number for $stumpy_soft and talk to Mr Bob Engrish who has a script that when read will kinda work with windows 7 but is nonsensical because there is no longer a start menu in 8. After hours of frustration it's likely they'll call a local tech where they'll be charged more because that tech is still learning WTF happened in Windows 8.

      Yes, it will eventually straighten itself out with time, just like with other version of Windows. Why should it be this way though? What is wrong with the Windows 7 desktop on a desktop? Change for change sake is foolish, change for good reasons has lots of resistance and can cause millions of man hours of unnecessary work if not done correctly. Changing 15 years of desktop habits because Microsoft wants me to buy their tablet too is a poor reason.

      Things that probably need to change, and why.

      Petrochemical fuels - global warming, wars over supply.

      Nuclear power - nuclear waste, nuclear proliferation.

      American politics - team America world police.

      Windows start menu on a desktop- ???

      1. IJC
        Flame

        Re: Shills & Trolls

        Why will their applications not work as expected? The operating system is changing not their software! All those existing apps will still run. The navigation might be slightly different, but hey, guess what, chances are their phone doesn't have a start button either and they manage that just fine. If they have trouble they'll ask the family techie who'll sort them out in two minutes.

        -Changing 15 years of desktop habits because Microsoft wants me to buy their tablet too is a poor reason.

        No its not. Its the way they make money. If they don't change now it will be a bigger problem later. You don't have to change. Don't buy a new machine or if it is OEM'd with 8 you can just install 7. I've used Windows since Windows 286 if you even know what that is. I've also used just about every other desktop OS at one point another. Change happens. We survive and move on. The whole brouhah will be forgotton in 18 months just like every other time. Techies always under estimate the ability of Joe Public to adapt and make things work. The arrogance is mind boggling.

        As for the rest, connecting socialist wet dreams to windows indicates either abysmal ignorance or incredible naivity. I pity your lack of a coherent world view. Go live in Southern Europe.

  6. Chika
    Coat

    > -Changing 15 years of desktop habits because Microsoft wants me to buy their tablet too is a poor reason.

    > No its not. Its the way they make money

    True enough. And not buying their stuff is the way I tell them that I don't want (or possibly like) what they want to sell me. That's my choice.

    Strangely enough, everybody has the same choice to make.

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