back to article Microsoft: YES! You can have your desktop back again for FREE!

Microsoft has confirmed that it will issue its Blue update to Windows 8 without charge, with first code scheduled at the company’s Build conference starting on June 26. This is in line with Redmond's previous policy in which users have been charged only for an entirely new iteration of the Windows OS, not for service packs and …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reckoned Windows 8.1 would “advance the bold vision”

    Hmmm thats not right, let me fix that for you

    Reckoned Windows 8.1 would “back peddle the bold vision”

    Ahh much better, now it makes sense!

  2. Splodger
    Flame

    Dear MS...

    Just get rid of Metro (completely), screen swipey stuff and "charms". And the MS store. And those full-screen programs.

    Return the proper start menu. And proper wifi network handling. And Minesweeper.

    And FFS stop calling programs bloody "apps".

    1. Mystic Megabyte
      Unhappy

      Re: Dear MS...

      I'm with you on the "apps" thing. I run the Chrome browser occasionally to see awkward web-sites. When I mistakenly go to Google Play I get bombarded with "apps". WTF is that about? Is this a site for 11 year olds or what?

      I just switch it off and start Firefox.

      As for Win8, no thanks.

      1. Aoyagi Aichou

        Re: Dear MS...

        Hah, "apps" everywhere. Extremely irritating on WP8.

    2. stanimir

      Re: Dear MS...

      And FFS stop calling programs bloody "apps". I wanna puke each time I hear that apps and the marketing is abusing it too much, too.

  3. MysteryGuy

    Are we getting a real start menu?

    Maybe I jut missed it, but last I heard the rumor was that the 'start menu' that was going to be added was really only a shortcut back to the "metro" start menu.

    Did MS say they are going to bring back the 'real' desktop start menu (for the desktop environment)?

  4. Corborg

    Our garden wall fell down

    MS tried to create a Metro driven app store, locking vendors in to their own distribution system so that they could take a fat profit ala Apple.

    It didn't work. You can have your start menu back.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Eadon = Anode = source of negativity

    Eadon we GET you HATE Microsoft. I know you've been subtle, but we've caught a hint. That's fine.

    What isn't fine, is EVERY article that mentions MS, you can guarantee you come along with your steel toe

    cap ballet shoes to give them a verbal hoofing. I think you protest too much and LOVE them, choosing to hide it under a veil of hate. Bet you have MS pyjamas and underpants with a picture of Balmer over your cute penguin probing love spigot. You love him. You do. Totally. He's like your girlfriend. You kiss him. MWAH MWAH that's the sound you make kissing him....

    1. Mr Spock
      Boffin

      Re: Eadon = Anode = source of negativity

      Isn't that the cathode?

  6. Zacherynuk
    Coffee/keyboard

    Same old same o

    This is always the case with MS and always has been, just more people to spin with now.

    Windows 3 not so good. 3.1 good. 3.11 Great

    Windows 95,98 both bad, but Win 98 Second edition very good.

    Windows ME (hahahaha)

    Windows NT 3.5 not so good 3.51 Great

    Windows NT 4 not so good - SP3 Great

    Windows 2000 Great, but SP1+ great improvements

    Windows XP Unusable until SP1 - SP2 was a massive change.

    Windows Vista Unusable at least until SP2

    Windows 7 Great, but SP1 good

    Windows 8 Great except for the misdirection and shitty UI and MSN login pseudo requirements.

    I hope 8.1 allows us to view more than 6 printers at a time. I have been asking MS for a resizeable printer selection dialogue during driver install every quarter for 12 years.

    I hope 8.1 doesn't require an MSN account link - cos that would be low.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: Same old same o

      95B was decent and pretty stable too.

  7. wowfood

    This is in line with Redmond's previous policy in which users have been charged only for an entirely new iteration of the Windows OS, not for service packs and updates to existing versions.

    Like how we got a free upgrade from Vista to 7 (or 6.1) or the free upgrade to windows 8? (effectively windows 6.2)

    Can't wait for the free upgrade to windows 9 to come out when they release another carbon copy OS with a few performance tweaks they they held back just to turn a profit.

  8. wowfood
    Meh

    On a more serious note

    compared to my last topic. I think windows 8 could have been a 'potential' success... if they hadn't forced Metro down our throats.

    Sure enforce it on tablets and phones, but give people a solid choice on the desktop and eventually they might migrate over. The interface works on a tablet and a phone, but it just doesn't work with a mouse.

    It's a silly mistake which has cost them in the long run. Heck, most of my friends who have bought new laptops have wound up calling me asking for help downgrading back to windows 7 (ripped the key from their old laptop) I wound up buying a blank laptop and installing Mint (my first linux OS) to avoid windows 8. Of all the people I work with, 1 has a windows 8 machine, and it's a surface.

    Even with windows 8.1 most people who held out are going to look at windows and go "Wiindows 8? That had that dodgy metro thing" and steer well clear, even if metro is now optional they'll steer well clear.

    Microsoft really dropped the ball on this, at least in my opinion. It was one of those things that had the potential to be great, but rather than keeping the doors wide open the stuck a skunk slap bang in the middle of the doorway. You can get rid of the skunk but that smell is still going to linger for some time.

  9. Levente Szileszky
    Stop

    Enough of the monkey business - full Start Menu or get lost, period.

    Seriously, you big, bald, arrogant, chair-throwing angry beancounter: not Start button BUT FULL-BLOWN, FULLY-FUNCTIONAL START MENU or you will BLOW YOUR LAST CHANCE to fix the junk you've created during your decade-long reign at MSFT.

    Kinda boring but I have to repeat myself *again*: ut sementem feceris ita metes - BALLMER & HIS ILKS MUST GO, the sooner the better because the later they go the more EXPENSIVE (time/resources/money) will be to fix the damage they caused ((and no, Ballmer's half-hearted reform attempts in the last couple of years are way too little way too late, he must go, period.)

    Also the obligatory link to the greatest article about MSTF & Ballmer from Vanity Fair (August 2012):

    "How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo: Steve Ballmer And Corporate America's Most Spectacular Decline"

    http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer#1

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Enough of the monkey business - full Start Menu or get lost, period.

      Can't you download Classic Shell and calm down? Or use Linux or OS X?

      Or just install Windows 7, no-one's FORCING you to take 8 in the rear entrance.

      IBM, it could be argued, lost its mojo, so did Dell, so did HP, Kodak, Polaroid, the list is endless. Vote with your wallet, buy something else. I've run countless OSs and if I don't like them, I don't use them again!

      If you have to support Windows 8 as your career, change jobs. There's no point popping a vein over it - have a nice cup of tea and a lovely choccy biccy put your feet up - there - that's not so bad now is it?

  10. Piro Silver badge

    Start button and boot to desktop: good!

    Now, just let me turn off ALL of metro (that means the start menu back, and no stupid hot corners), and give me back the Aero glass theme. I can't stand this flat rubbish. Removing the shadows was stupid too - makes everything look the same. It has absolutely no class.

    Then you'll have.. oh wait, Windows 7. If only they used all that time polishing up the desktop experience instead of this metro bollocks, we'd have an upgrade worth getting.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    .I..

    What I don't understand is why Sinofsky missed all that single digit telegraphy from users.

  12. MigMig

    Critique of Pure Animal Behavior - by MigMig-Johnson Kant

    ***My apologies for grammar/structure. I had no time to proof-read so I wrote this critique on the fly. Either way I should be working on a college essay due tomorrow instead of indulging on the age old practice of blind-leading-the-blind***

    I own a Windows 8 touch laptop, which I dock when I get home to turn it into a desktop. It's come to a point where even while docked and used on a non-touch screen, I no longer miss the older interface. Every program works normally. The computer hasn't suffered from spontaneous combustion and all my porn videos remain just a click/touch/digitizer tap away. Actually, Microsoft at least deserves recognition for making the term "Fingering" a practical one (as in "I lost my mouse, but no need to worry, fingering my tablet is just as easy). Please, let this not catalyze the outdated claim that Apple invented fingering because they didn't. They just mainstreamed it in a package even a monkey with Down Syndrome can appreciate.

    Digressions aside, I feel bad for these computer companies who sell their souls to cater to the middle of the intellectual bell-curve in this society and are left with no choice but to take responsibility for our culture's obsession towards mediocrity, which unfortunately, has made its nest somewhere in the middle of the aforementioned curve. One can express denial with anger, kick and scream as if the world cares, but in the end one can't hide the fact that the free flow of information has gotten to be inversely proportional with our overall intellectual progress. These is one of the many ironies that will probably always escape me.

    But not all is gloom and doom, for Apple has managed to harness this information black hole into what is arguably the greatest fiat currency collector in human history. Such ingenuity is deserving of a coveted prize (please don't suggest Nobel because even Obama won one by doing little more than following Machiavellian philosophy to a T, leaving a permanent stain on what Nobel represents past present and future). Their astuteness of their Direct evidence can be found everywhere, from free advertisement provided by those with the iconic apple sticker in their car to the iron grip its marketing has over the pour souls who, having lost their ability to exercise any form of free will, also engrave their souls with a metaphorical Apple sticker. It's almost as if this act grants them any type of edge over those with a less religious and more practical approach to satisfying their gadget-thirst. I know that there are strong similarities held between Machiavellian philosophy and Apple's infamous marketing approach, but at least Apple gives us cool stuff while Obama gives us no more than 6th grade level rhetoric.

    This leaves us with poor 'ol Microsoft, which unfortunately is far from being off the hook of scrutiny. Much can be said about this misunderstood brand, which was doomed from the day of its conception due to its forced dysfunctional marriage with arbitrary hardware manufacturers and their flaky corner-cutting tactics employed to stretch their every dollar. Some of their employees even find it impossible to hid their contempt for their jobs (a big shout out to my possibly stoned niggers [I’m half black so I’m licensed to use the word as long as I don’t pronounce it like a white man] in the Samsung Customer Service department, whom I recently had the pleasure of educating on what an ATIV 700T is). Even while being guilty of willfully dumping thousands into this company because of my addiction to digitizer technology which Apple is too thick headed to embrace, I leave enough room for the humility it takes to admit that, when compared to Apple hardware, in my opinion, the brand I sponsor with my my hard earned cash is no match for Apple. I sometimes wonder if they actually employ magical elves to put together their hardware, because when you hold an Apple product in your hands, you can physically sense the amount of love that each individual device was saturated with, as opposed to, say, originating from an assembly line manned for pennies by not-so-magical oblivious Chinese underage kids under duress from what is likely a demanding asshole morality-free boss. Furthermore, another case against PC's is the existence of the many masochistic systems administrators out there who derive pleasure out of beating their PC's into submission so they can perform simple tasks. Interestingly enough, many parallels can be drawn between these unfortunate souls and Apple's equivalent to "iSheep", one parallel just off the top of my head is denial of the possibility of being just another tool for a soulless materialistic corporation. Those who surrender and break from this chain are often tragically enslaved by another, as they trade in their masochism for a religious approach towards the competition. I guess this is fueled by a deep seated hatred towards the Microsoft brand because, according to them, is responsible for many years of aggravating driver installs, network tweaking, hardware maintenance and redundant computer restarts. Their anger towards Microsoft can reach such intensity that they are unable to at least appreciate the fact that the very demons they battled for years were also responsible for the same job security that kept them employed and often funded their children’s special ed courses.

    I hope that this philosophical perspective, which I so altruistically gifted humanity with, finally settles the intelligence-insulting battle of ideologies between gadget makers who ultimately see us as dollar signs. It is my hope that those exercising the amount of self-loathing required to read this piece in its entirety, eventually manage to improve their lives in one way or another because of it. If this manages to influence at least one soul into harnessing a sense of freedom that only comes from within, I'll consider my efforts worthwhile. In the unlikely event that this is the case, I might consider using this essay as a case in favor of a worldwide legalization of cannabis. I know, I know. You science geeks out there are probably thinking that even after more than 30 years since the airing of Cosmos, the ripples it made on waters weren't even enough for the Federal Government to downgrade cannabis from its schedule 1 title, but I see no harm that may come from an excess of optimism. On the other hand, in the likely event this is not taken seriously and even gets misunderstood as satirical in nature (which would actually be a plus at this stage), I want to make it clear that the purpose behind this essay was purely influenced by a genuine desire to bring humanity one step closer to world peace, which I believe can only be done by social awareness of our own irrational behavior leading us to behavior that should be beneath us by now.

    Disclaimers:

    *In the unlikelihood of anything within this piece is considered satire, I want to make it clear that it was purely accidental.

    *I didn't go beyond reading the Original Post's title so take my wisdom with a grain of salt. I just saw the word "Microsoft" somewhere, and that alone makes this venue a magnet for expressing ideologies, suppressed emotions, finger pointing and arbitrarily guided frustration so I couldn't resist chiming in.

    *As opposed as to what a clever reader might assume, I didn't spend an hour of my time writing this essay because I'm a attention whore, but because of my benevolent obsession with giving mixed with my tendency to procrastinate in regards to matters of practical relevance.

    *Because I'm an attention whore, if this manages to draw any form of attention (be it love or hate), it would only result in stroking my ego.

    Ok, Adios. I've stalled working on my college essay as much as I possibly could.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Critique of Pure Animal Behavior - by MigMig-Johnson Kant

      A big shout out to the MS marketing department, what a wall of useless text .

      1. Paul Shirley

        Re: Critique of Pure Animal Behavior - by MigMig-Johnson Kant

        Stopped reading when he got to playing porn. As any fule kno, stock Win8 doesn't contain the pornographers favourite codecs.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Critique of Pure Animal Behavior - by MigMig-Johnson Kant

      Bloody students. Get a job.

    3. MacGyver
      Trollface

      Re: Critique of Pure Animal Behavior - by MigMig-Johnson Kant

      Next time just type "Lorem Ipsum".

      This is why you shouldn't surf the internet when you are really high, or if you do, don't respond in the comment sections.

  13. Joe 48

    What About server 2012

    So 8 gets the Start Menu but what about server 2012. I know people recommend Core and I use it and am happy with it where possible. So many 3rd party vendors won't support it fully were forced into the full install for most of our server estate and then get the Metro crap which has no place on a server OS.

  14. mark l 2 Silver badge

    its good to see Microsoft have listen to critism about the shortcoming of Windows 8 on not touch screen devices and are going to return the start menu. The only worry i have with it being Microsoft is that because they want everyone to use the metro interface and buy apps from the Windows store they this may only be a temporary allowance that will get reversed at a later date once more people become accustomed to the metro interface

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apparently the Metro Launcher will be...

    ... Subject to a GPO allowing corporates to assert the desktop as the default - if this is true then it's one enormous reason to give 8.1 a chance.

    I had a meeting with MS once, during which it was suggested that Redmond was a bit upset at how so many software companies still weren't redesigning stuff to work with TIFKAM till I pointed out that we were discussing a MS product which (just like everything else there can be) uses the pinned Taskbar buttons for apps to display state changes even if the apps are minimized, and uses system tray icons to notify users of communications BETWEEN concurrently running applications.

    I said to the rep, "OK, you tell me how MS can remodel this app to be fully TIFKAM compliant when the preferred launcher hides the apps so you can't even see what's running and what isn't, obscures tray icon statuses so you would miss important notifications unless you drop back to the old desktop, and obscures a widget that all users need to be able to see at all times regardless of which app they're currently working in".

    Thing is, I quite like TIFKAM in a non-corporate desktop context, but I know of far too many large corporate setups where most of the business critical apps were written years ago and for many of them the vendors would want to be paid SQUILLIONS to even stop using VB6 for designing the front ends never mind developing from scratch a TIFKAM compliant front end in .NET... the idea that the corporate market was going to accept TIFKAM overnight, and then spunk even money away like there's no tomorrow on getting reluctant vendors to totally redevelop their front ends (even when in some cases doing so may actually break the functionality of the application), was just daft daft daft.

  16. MacGyver
    Trollface

    It does perform better than an bathmat, at some tasks, but just barely.

    Is it just me or is WiFI networking abysmal under Win8?

    I have to run the "Troubleshooter" task on my yellow exclamation pointed networking icon at least 2 or three times a day. I also have one access point per floor in my house each on a different channel and with a different name, and at least once every 2 hours the AP I am on at the time just stops working at full speed, and I have to switch to the next closest one, until that one starts t o slow down, and I switch back. The APs are different brands, and I could just switch right back to the previous one right after switching to the next and it would work again too. This is not an AP or a configuration issue, as XP on the same hardware (dual-boot) doesn't have the same issues, it is Windows 8. Also whats the deal with that goddamn green progress bar "working" when trying to access folders? Why does my computer need to "work" for 2 minutes to show me the contents of a folder I was just in? Did they write the File Explorer in Java or what?

    Not a day goes by when I don't curse the piece of shirt that is Windows 8. I have high blood pressure so I didn't even bring up the missing Start-menu or the fact I have to type and search to find anything.

    My happiness level with Windows 8 is a 1 out 10, in that I can still use the internet sometimes and it can't physically harm me (aside from the increased stroke risk caused by using Windows 8) .

    They put back the Start-bar in 8.1, swell, now fix the other efficiency killing stuff, then fix the rest of the things you broke between Windows 7 and Windows 8.

  17. Greg Williams
    Flame

    OK, getting a bit sick of the whining...

    Look, for God's sake... they tried something new. They tried to change what was the status quo and do something different.

    OK, fair enough, for desktop use it was less than successful, but it certainly wasn't all bad. I'm dual booting with it myself and whilst there is definitely a learning curve before you come to terms with it and get used to it - you DO get used to it. Yes, I do still prefer Windows 7.

    The biggest problem I see here is that most of you whining on about having something forced down your throats and bitching on about Windows 8 would be the same people who would wring there hands and keen with dismay if they release something that isn't much different from the last version.

    I will always respect the company that tries something significantly different, but fails as opposed to the company which cowardly releases the same shit with a slightly different visual sheen to it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: OK, getting a bit sick of the whining...

      They ignored near-constant feedback in testing.

      They didn't try something new, they were doing something that users didn't want, that users said they didn't want.

      1. Zot
        Thumb Up

        Re: OK, getting a bit sick of the whining...

        I agree, they had months of feedback before release. Now they've had the same feedback after release. Having something new wasn't the problem, it was truly the lack of ergonomics and unintuitive design that f**ked it up.

        It's almost like they don't use their own OS at work? If they do, I'm betting the office computers are all switched to desktop mode.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: OK, getting a bit sick of the whining...

        They ignored feedback in testing, but they didn't ignore the years of feedback from users of Windows who were participating in the user feedback program. There was way more feedback from the feedback program and quite a bit of noisy shouting from techies, who have a habit of doing that sort of thing. You must have noticed that technies don't deal with change well?

      3. Greg Williams
        Stop

        Re: OK, getting a bit sick of the whining...

        "They didn't try something new, they were doing something that users didn't want, that users said they didn't want."

        The same thing happened with Vista. The feedback on that was rather fanatical and foamy-mouthed, but the released it anyway. And yes, that turned out to be a flop, like Windows 8 - but then it was refined into Windows 7, which was a fantastic OS and still the OS of choice for many of us here whilst still fundamentally being very similar and including many of the changes that Vista introduced.

        So perhaps after some refinement, Windows 8.1/9 will become the next Windows 7?

        The fact of the matter is that change pisses off everyone, especially the first revisions of that change. Eventually though, maybe it will in future iterations become a gem.

        Ultimately, people are being very impatient and prone to overreaction - especially when you consider that you can turn off Metro via other methods anyway.

        I'm not, as I said, a huge fan of Windows 8 - but I DO see potential there. A diamond in the rough perhaps? We'll see.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: OK, getting a bit sick of the whining...

          I remember vividly - users complaining bitterly about Windows XP and that "it looks all cartoony".

          Company directors hated it and wanted to stick with good old Windows 98. People HATE change - they always have and always will - because it requires you to LEARN to do something differently that you could do almost instinctively. Yes, it's a PITA, but without change we'd all still be living in caves....

          I don't like the "new" 5p coins but I got over it....

          1. MacGyver
            IT Angle

            Haters gonna hate, for a reason.

            I think you mean Windows ME, as it came just before XP but after 98, it was basically Windows 98 with DOS crippled, the Windows 2000 WIA, and the theme from Windows 2000, and was a horrible OS, it is the OS that blue-screened on Bill during the press event. XP was the first truly 32-bit consumer OS available from Microsoft, but its ability to run legacy DOS programs was severely lacking, and since most of the business software people were using at the time wasn't working under the new OS (old DOS/3.1 software), of course they bitched. I "bitched" when Microsoft removed my ability to open a File Explorer under a different user (secondary shell) with IE 8 and Windows 7, because it screwed up my workflow. Windows 8 changed more than the GUI, they removed functionality, and dumbed down the whole OS. Just because most people don't fully understand why we hate it,it doesn't mean our reasons are any less valid.

            Have you tried mapping a NTLM v1 Linux Samba share to a Win8-Home drive letter recently? Good luck doing it quickly without gpedit.msc. Or how about you tell me how to change the priority of your Wifi connections under Win8. If that didn't make sense, then don't question why we hate it, you wouldn't understand our "hater" reasons anyway.

    2. Greg Williams

      Re: OK, getting a bit sick of the whining...

      their*

      ;)

  18. MarketingTechnoDude
    Holmes

    Words have a meaning .. don't mess with them!

    The word "Windows" in a computing context means to most of us the concept of multiple overlapping/side-by-side rectangular regions on the display screen which can be freely moved around/positioned/overlapped/resized/minimised/maximised by the user to interact with programs and data/graphics so we can perform work functions or be entertained in some way...

    This understanding of what Windows means has been commonplace since the early 90's (Windows 3.x, 9x, X11, Mac OSX, Linux xxx, OS/2, XP, vista, 7 ...)

    Windows 8 is a classic marketing error of line extension. You take a well known brand (or sub brand) and you slap it onto something new and expect everyone to buy the new thing on the strength of the brand recognition!

    Unfortunately The Metro/App touchscreen interface is widely at odds with our perception of what we perceive to be a "Windowing" system. You don't get windows side by side/overlapping which can be freely moved/resized etc on the same display screen.

    Classic example of a marketing leader in one category failing to recognize the appearance of a new product category and then when it is too late, flailing around in a damage limitation exercise.

    Trying to create a product which merges two distinct usage methods of interaction together is a fundamental mistake as well. They were (and still are) the leader in Windowing systems. Even if it is a declining market in the total computing sector (including the new entrants of smart phones and tablets), they still have a massive market and installed base. They need to recognize Windows 8.0 as a Cherry Coke and get back to delivering the real deal of a proper windowed system and moving their metro stuff to dedicated tablets if they want to also operate in that sector (also ran to apple IOS and Google Android)..

    Really it was a very simple thing they had to do. Just keep nudging Windows along to take better advantage of hardware developments (memory, SSD, Mulitple CPU cores, Graphics GPUs etc) and make it the best (and please for christsake reliable/stable/crashproof) desktop in the market....

    However the Windows 8 debacle has opened the gates for alternative Windowed based systems to enter or increase market share in the desktop/laptop sectors of the market place (Linux x, Chrome, Chromes, OSX).

    It is however to be expected, the leader of an existing category in any market rarely becomes the leader of the emerging new market category. Hence we have seen Microsoft fail time and time again to bring out anything new outside of their main sector of computer OS and Office Applications. In someways you could say that the Office Suite is a key part of the core software of the desktop computer operating system which has been unbundled from the OS. So in essence Windows/Office is what we generally perceive to be a Microsoft Product (the PC). Anything that is not a PC branded as Microsoft is therefore just a line extension of the Microsoft brand (which typically ends in failure...).

    So if Bill is still on the ball(mer), he should focus all efforts on focusing the company on the desktop/laptop/Office sectors and probably also companion infrastructure products (i.e. server/cloud)...

    GizaJob..i could runs rings around the marketing numpties responsible for the Win 8 debacle!

    1. Chika
      Trollface

      Re: Words have a meaning .. don't mess with them!

      Windows 1 was a strange beast. Apparently it could open windows but couldn't overlay them. Sounds familiar, that does!

      Actually, there's supposed to be an ad somewhere on YT of Ballmer selling W1.

    2. qwarty

      Re: Words have a meaning .. don't mess with them!

      Actually I like the two distinct types of application coexisting on one device and the fact I can use (or develop) a Metro app to work well on tablet, detachable, desktop, whatever. What I strongly dislike is the ludicrous notion that a full/split screen metro application space somehow replaces a windowed desktop in general on PC technology. Messaging from Microsoft is extremely muddy on this issue and this as much as the trivia like the start menu business that makes for much criticism I suspect.

      Possibly the most fundamental mistake the Windows group at Microsoft made was releasing the whole Metro system without testing the whole concept on non-trivial apps. If Microsoft Office had been shown to work well much criticism on the more radical changes would have been deflected but instead they launched with trivial apps in the store and I've yet to see anything to catch my imagination over 6 months later. Although had they not made this beginners error Metro would be rather different as I don't believe what we have at the moment is capable of delivering an acceptable mode of use for Office. I'm curious as to whether 'Blue' has learned from this mistake or its going to take another year to undo the damage.

      As you say, its hard to imagine what it is about windows in Windows that apparently escapes the current marketing and design crew at Microsoft.

      Personally I'd like to see hybrid WinRT apps that can operate in multitasking windows on desktop AND the full/split screen space but not holding out much hope this will happen this year.

  19. /\/\j17

    “It will be easy to get it right from the Windows Start screen through the app store,”

    Hopefully it will be available via Windows Update or a direct download too as I can't access the app store on my Win8 machine - it's a Netbook so falls below Metro's minimum screen resolution.

  20. Chad H.

    users have been charged only for an entirely new iteration of the Windows OS....

    Except for Windows 98, Me, Plus, 7, etc......

  21. Prowler
    WTF?

    Wait, what?

    " We feel good that we've listened and looked at all of the customer feedback ..."

    So Tami Reller is doing stand-up comedy?

    They are listening all right, to telemetry, from the shallow end of the gene pool that remains opted-in to the CEIP. They are certainly not listening to us for the last *two* years now. Sinofsky made it an art-form to delete or ignore overwhelming negative criticism on the official Destroying Windows Blog. Nothing has ever penetrated their bubble, and countless good people have tried to save them from this fiasco.

    Windows Blew will be an unprecedented kick in the teeth to everyone that tried to get through to them - if the reports are true that there *will* be a Start Button *but* it will point at Metro! There is no possible way for Microsoft to send a bigger FU to those valued customers than that. None whatsoever.

    I don't know where the article title comes from ( "have your desktop back ..." ) because it does in fact remain, but radically altered both aesthetically and functionally. Windows 7 with a bolted-on Metro might have been acceptable, but reverting the visuals to Windows 1.0 flatness among other things is what people are angry about. Turning powerful workstations with space-age graphic capability into a freaking tablet is a big problem.

  22. Shrimpling

    I'm waiting for 8.11 myself. Its bound to be the best version

  23. Dreams
    Meh

    "This is in line with Redmond's previous policy in which users have been charged only for an entirely new iteration of the Windows OS..."

    Really? What about Windows 98SE.

  24. JP19

    "get it right from the Windows Start screen through the app store,"

    Funny, the app store was the first thing I tried to delete from TIKFAM.

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