We banned Windows 8 from the premises long before XP support ended.
Microsoft walks into a bar. China screams: 'Eww is that Windows 8? GET OUT OF HERE'
The Chinese government has banned Windows 8 from a sizeable chunk of public-sector PCs – capping off a long-running dispute with Microsoft over the company's decision to cut support for XP. The ban was announced by the government's IT procurement agency in a notice posted online on Friday. It was addressed to vendors bidding …
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 23:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Until they realised that it's much harder to pirate Windows 8....
I've been running disposable w8.1 system for months now - it complaints about activation but keeps working hard for all the "casual" Internet access (if you know what i mean;). The only downside (besides nags) is that it won't let me personalize the start screen - OMG MS.
Really no reason to pirate.
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 17:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
When will MS get it?
That Win 8 is a disaster, not just for them but for the whole PC industry...
I reluctantly bought a Win 8 non touch laptop to replace the wifes aging XP thinkpad. The Win 8 UI is utter crap.
The only positive outcome is that we have split up - so at least I won't be called on to do Win 8 support :| ( I migrated my stuff to Linux)
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 17:51 GMT Gordon 11
Re: When will MS get it?
That Win 8 is a disaster, not just for them but for the whole PC industry.
If the whole PC industry has been relying only on Microsoft, then it deserves anything it gets for running a single-supplier "plan".
My (limited) use of Win8.1 seems to show it's OK - just use the desktop part all of the time.
As for Red Flag Linux's demise - HP have stepped in:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/22/china_makes_linux_os_with_canonical_help/
http://www.zdnet.com/hp-targets-chinas-post-xp-crowd-with-ubuntu-kylin-7000029490/
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 09:59 GMT Bloakey1
Re: I installed Windows 8.1 on a Mac Mini under UEFI mode.
"And there you have it. The best machine for Windows ..is.....A Mac!"
<snip>
Apart from NT4 running on a DEC Alpha, the best ever installations I have done of XP and Win 7 have been on Macs using Boot Camp etc.
I had a big network of them in Abu Dhabi and life was sweet and crashes few.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 12:56 GMT Rick Giles
Re: "The only positive outcome is that we have split up"
"So the moral of the story is....if you want to split up with your partner, just get them Windows 8!"
I wonder if that's why my wife has been eyeing that Windows 8 touch screen laptop at the store.
I have alredy informed her that I will not support it.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 09:56 GMT Bloakey1
Re: When will MS get it?
<snip>
"I reluctantly bought a Win 8 non touch laptop to replace the wifes aging XP thinkpad. The Win 8 UI is utter crap.
The only positive outcome is that we have split up - so at least I won't be called on to do Win 8 support :| ( I migrated my stuff to Linux)"
Very sneaky move that one, I am glad your roll out strategy worked and that you had a positive result if not user experience.
Buy that man a pint.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 14:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: IP abuse champion?
China, the champion of IP abuse
You should really check your history. One of the most ironic feutures of the modern world is that the economy that attempts to claim the moral high ground on IP rights actually kicked off in the EXACT same fashion. The US berating China on its treatment of IP really is the pot calling the kettle black, despite what all their deceptive marketing tries to make you believe.
Not that I'm OK with what China does, but one has to preserve a bit of perspective here. He who is without sin and so on.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 21:22 GMT Cliff
Re: IP abuse champion?
A friend has a company that makes things to sell. He made them in the UK to sell for a long time, but needed a cheaper line to sell alongside the premium line and took the blueprints to China for production. On his second visit, he saw local shops already selling knock-off's of his product, from the very same blueprint.
IP is heavily abused in all directions in the US for sure, no question, but it's slower and less balls-out.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 23:56 GMT Mpeler
Re: IP abuse champion?
A company I knew of had a similar experience, but 30 years ago, with Japan. Had a cross-company management training program, blueprints missing for a day, back the next day. Six months later, VERY similar devices started rolling out from Japan....the more things change, the more they remain the same...
What's that saying, "Better the enemy you know, than the friend you don't" ? (Not endorsing spying or the like....).
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 20:45 GMT Cliff
Re: breaking news!
Reg never did up to the minute news, it does analysis. Think how much inane babble Fox and other rolling news stations bang out, jumping at every rumour and publishing every press release - when a bit of reflection could tell the whole story better. It's a different style of journalism.
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 18:02 GMT Michael Hawkes
Payback
I wonder if this is indirect payback against the US government for accusations against some Chinese officials.
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 18:17 GMT Ben Burch
50% market penetration, but only 5% ever paid for.
I can see no reason for Microsoft to give them a thing; Most of those machines are running pirated copies anyway! Remember those cheap, cheap copies of XP that you could get in Hong Kong? The ones that looked exactly like the Redmond product but were 100% phony?
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 18:22 GMT Ken Hagan
Coming up next: Chinese XP.
So several Chinese companies are lining up to provide "support" for XP (doubtless benefitting from the fact that the Chinese government can provide them with the source code)? No doubt they'll be keen to offer this service to overseas customers as well. I can see it now. Install this "Chinasoft Update" ActiveX control and use it like you used to use Microsoft Update. Your Chinese friends will then supply you with monthly updates to your trusted computing base.
Sadly, I can imagine lots of people signing up to that.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 16:44 GMT J 3
Re: Coming up next: Chinese XP.
Source code. That's the thing. Software companies should be forced to release to the public domain any code that they stop supporting, so others can do so if there is demand for such service.
What do you say, the new OS is mostly old code? Well, if that's such a problem then why (rhetorical question) release a new version at all and kill the older one? If the new thing is so much more advanced and different, and not just some cosmetic crap sprinkled with a few worthy performance/security patches, why care about the old code, right?
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 22:29 GMT John Tserkezis
This is very telling.
It also confirms that things in China (and other countries) are still working how they were (WRT piracy).
Other operating systems like Linux (whichever flavour) haven't, are not and will not ever be popular - not because there's anything wrong with them, it's because they sit exactly alonside Windows when it comes to value and cost. With everything "free" (or pirated, whatever the case may be) Windows is going to win every time because it has a somewhat higher value (perceived or otherwise), that is, more worldwide popularity, as a development platform for a worldwide market, and it is better refined in some areas. Yes, yes, one could argue the point, but when push comes to shove, since the "cost" is the same (free), windows wins.
Their ban of 8/8.1 is very telling. They must hate it. They must really, really hate it.
Hey, I don't blame them, they get kudos for having the balls to tell it like it is.
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Tuesday 20th May 2014 23:03 GMT Herby
Touchscreen on a Desktop?
Sorry, it just doesn't make sense. The places that use "touch" are much different than those that might use other pointing methods (Mouse). Most of the "touch" interfaces are one handed (the other hand usually supports the device you are "touching"). The desktop model, is a two handed one with nice widely spaced keys (and lots of them) and enough real estate to allow a mouse to be active. These are two VERY DIFFERENT environments, and Microsoft doesn't understand this, forcing a common solution on all of us. It is like having a steering wheel on a motorcycle. Sure it might work, but it just doesn't work out too well.
Microsoft needs to get a clue and understand the difference between one- and two- handed computing.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 08:24 GMT sabroni
Re: How on earth did MS go from something as good as W7 to the CRAP of W8?
it's easy. They changed the start menu. That's it. Every single moan on here boils down to "I didn't want them to change the start screen". And while a load of nerds bitch about how unusable it is and how it's TOTALLY CRAP those of us running it just click on the desktop tile and use it like 7.
Seriously, it's not that big of a deal. Install a start button replacement if you must, but if you dislike change that much then you're probably in the wrong business....
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 08:57 GMT Pascal Monett
Re: those of us running it
Three people do not make a valid representative sample.
Windows 8 has changed a lot more than just the Start menu. It has also attempted to lock users into a walled garden, among other issues.
But I do not expect someone happy with a Playskool UI to be knowledgeable about issues. Go back to clicking your shiny tiles. I'm glad you're happy with it.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 18:05 GMT sabroni
Re: It has also attempted to lock users into a walled garden, among other issues.
Well, with a comprehensive list of clear problems like that you've certainly shown me a thing or two. Well actually one thing, which doesn't really bear any examination once you realise the "walled garden" allows you to install all the apps you used to run on 7...
But "playskool UI", now that hurts.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 01:45 GMT RAMChYLD
ReactOS
China should look into sponsoring ReactOS if XP support is so important to them. Seriously, there are a lot of programs, namely games, that won't run under 7 or 8 properly if at all. Even in XP mode (because of said 3D requirements). Ie Fallout 3, which has broken BGM under 7 and Bethesda turning a blind eye to the issue.
WINE? When I last tried to run SimCity 2013 in WINE it gave me some cryptic error message about activation...
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 03:52 GMT Bucky 2
Re: Wine (was: ReactOS)
Yeah, Wine is an odd product.
On the one hand, from a purely academic standpoint, it really is kind of a wonderful piece of reverse engineering.
On the other, there has historically been some rough treatment in both directions of both end users by engineers, and engineers by end users. On the plus side, some of the really abrupt comments seem to have gone missing from winehq since last I looked, so maybe things are looking up.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 03:26 GMT Steven Roper
I wonder
how much of this animosity is about Windows 8 itself and how much is due to its:
1) de-emphasis on local storage and emphasis on cloud storage, with its ongoing security risks and payments to retain your data.
2) requiring or at least constant nagging to log in to a Live account allowing MS to track your usage of the machine.
3) moving to a "rental" software business model with constant payments and forced updates.
It's not the interface so much as the invasiveness and control of the machine that is the issue for me and most other people I've discussed this with. China aren't stupid. They know what companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple are trying to do, and I suspect they don't like it, any more than I do.
If I pay for a computer, it is mine. End of discussion.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 04:26 GMT dan1980
Re: I wonder
@Steven Roper
Yes to all that, but as a whole, encompassing more that just those specific points, it's about Microsoft designing their software around a business model, rather than designing it around what the customers want.
In doing so, they are essentially trying to force their customers to fit their business model.
It's their business so they can do what they want but with that position must come the acceptance that there will be customers who believe that software should fit their needs and not the other way around (what a crazy notion!) and who will choose accordingly.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 09:05 GMT Pascal Monett
Re: it's about Microsoft designing their software around a business model
I'm rather surprised that Microsoft bases its business model on everyone having 100Mbps connections whereas most people in the US barely have 2Mpbs.
Sure, in Taiwan they have 100Mbps (or so I heard), but for most other people in the world, the Cloud is just a slow remote drive that is not always there. And not secure. And not under your control.
So yeah, what's not to like ?
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 08:28 GMT MacGyver
Get Windows 8.1 for Free?
No, Remind me later. (or preferably not)
Fool me once, shame on you, have me install your crappy "upgrade" once, and then after I update my firmware, have my OS go insane until I format and reload my OS again?
I know exactly why China doesn't want Windows 8, I know all too well.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 18:33 GMT Nigel 11
I'm still hoping that "Elephants never forget", and that IBM is going to take its revenge on Microsoft at some future date. Possibly if/when Microsoft announces EOL on Windows 7 with no business-appropriate replacement in sight.
I'm told IBM uses Linux on a large scale internally, including on desktops.
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Wednesday 21st May 2014 11:33 GMT Nigel 11
Linux alternative?
China may not have many alternatives to Microsoft, though, given that the country's homegrown OS "Red Flag Linux" apparently shut its doors and fired all staff in February.
the question there should be "what did Red Flag Linux offer, that the commonly used Linux distributions do not?" The common distros all come with Chinese Language support. Not being Chinese, I cannot comment on how good or otherwise that might be. But maybe they simply felt there was nothing that Red Flag Linux offered, that Ubuntu or Fedora or Centos could not also offer. They can read all the source code. They can modify or add packages to their own requirements. Linux isn't all-or-nothing in the way that Windows is.