PSST! New PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled are out there – and will be into 2015, at least It seems businesses will be able to order new PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled, rather than Windows 8, for a bit longer than we previously thought – although we don't yet know for just how long. According to an update to Microsoft's lifecycle policy first spotted by Redmond-watcher Mary Jo Foley on Friday, the date when OEMs …
I personally love Windows 8... I like 8.1 a little less since they made the start screen more moron friendly (people hooked on Windows 7). I think Microsoft has developed a truly amazing new system and for the smarter people, it's insanely fast and efficient. I even have been seeing many people switch back because of it.
That said, I was talking with some friend who are upset about the official death of Windows XP because of issues related to their inability to move. Applications were written which were millions of lines of code by consultant firms and are too big to rewrite and are not able to be recompiled (not sure why). There are applications which shipped with dongles for anti-piracy which can't be installed on anything newer than Windows XP as well. Some people might say "stupid asses shouldn't have bought software which uses dongles", the alternative of course was not being able to do the job.
I don't see any good technical reasons that someone needs Windows 7 instead of 8. I haven't found any applications which ran on 7 but not 8, but there may be a few.
Oh... Since when has HP ever been shy about shipping 10 times as many products as a sane company could actually support? Look at their network in line now... Wow!!! Even their top networking guys don't have a clue about even what OS is running on their equipment.
There are quite a few applications that don't run under 8, as several compatibility layers are gone.
There are far more that do not officially support 8, although they might actually run. Businesses can't take the risk that they will find an issue and be told "Sorry, but we don't support that application under Windows 8"
Finally, the completely new interface means retraining every single one of your users, having all of them take a productivity hit while they learn it, and your internal Helpdesk being overwhelmed by calls/external Helpdesk charging you a lot more for increased call volume.
So Windows 8 carried a large risk and high cost, yet with little to no benefit.
As a standalone or home user you could very well like or even love it, but that doesn't make it a sane choice for business.
" Applications were written ... by consultant firms and are too big to rewrite and are not able to be recompiled (not sure why). ... dongles for anti-piracy which can't be installed on anything newer than Windows XP as well."
Oh dear
"Some people might say "stupid asses shouldn't have bought software which uses dongles", the alternative of course was not being able to do the job."
The alternative was for the main board to sack the IT director and get one with a clue. Or keep the existing IT director and force feed the department a clue, about the value of owning (and having control over) what you'll be paying a fortune for, because it's essential to the business. It's not even as though the concept of "vendor lock in" is radical and new.
It doesn't really matter what Microsoft wants. As stated elsewhere, business customers don't rush into new OS or new PC deployments. Windows 7 is what they all want and if PC manufacturer's stop selling Windows 7 PC's in February of 2015, business customers will just wait it out until they see a significant change from the disaster that is Windows 8. No matter how much the handful of geeks that like Windows 8 think everyone should jump on board, that's just not going to happen. Microsoft blew it with Windows 8 and businesses aren't going to be pressed into buying Windows 8, no matter what Microsoft does.
All I see are "win8 downgraded to win7" - so no PROPER win 7 licence on the box!!! and the install is already activated, using an OEM licence , so if you have a company image that has to be loaded (all the software, tweaks, etc, etc that would normally take *hours* per PC!), then a call to MS is needed... :(
Home users are not safe either.. what if win7 crashes and burns a few years later??? with a licence on the box, no problem... :)
Surely if the Enterprises are upgrading to Windows 7 now then when Windows 9 is released they will be two generations behind rather than three. Vista seems to have dropped out of the generational count. I suppose you may be including Windows 8.1, but that would seem odd.
Microsoft seem to alternate decent versions of Windows.
- 3.0 was OK but lacking.
+ 3.1 was much more successful.
- Win95 was quite successful but widely regarded as a resource hog at the time. In particular, it had no Internet email or web client included. This is probably the shakiest negative.
+ Win98 was more successful and for the first time included a web browser.
- Windows ME was widely scorned and generally ignored.
+ Windows XP was generally well regarded and was (and is) widely used.
- Vista was loathed (primarily as a resouce hog, although there were ways to rectify this)
+ Windows 7 was well received and is in wide deployment.
- Windows 8 was hated. For once this was not due to efficiency issues, but due to the radical changes to interface design.
...........To keep an operating system that is actually USEABLE (unlike the APPALLING Windows 8).
As I pointed out when Win8 first appeared, enterprises will not install something which requires such a large amount of user training with the associated COST.
Microsoft need to go back to the drawing board QUICKLY and produce something useable in the enterprise.
Micro$oft keep taking away the good/useful stuff (e.g. TechNet) or else Borking it beyond all repair (e.g. Win8 with the UI formerly known as Metro). Add to that the massive price increases to MSDN, more strange interface mangling (colorless dev environments anyone, or the useless ribbon which I guess is there to choke anyone trying to get any reasonable amount of work done).
That type of (product/development?) decision-making reminds me of the PHB who wanted a database in Mauve because he heard it was faster.....
Seems like they want to be a boutique that no one will visit....sad...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
