back to article Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois

Fanbois and Fandroids often attract derision for their slavish devotion to their preferred kit, but may just have been put in the shade by dedicated followers of … Windows 8. Yes, you read that right. Windows 8 has dedicated followers. Or to use Microsoft's wording, “our most enthusiastic customers”. The verbiage above comes …

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  1. Big-nosed Pengie

    "Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois"

    What - both of them?

    1. ThomH

      Re: "Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois"

      Yeah, with their 162 computers.

    2. LarsG

      Re: "Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois"

      No one in the world uses 81 windows devices on the same account....

      Unless you can prove me wrong?

      1. Frankee Llonnygog

        Re: "Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois"

        user: admin

        password: admin

      2. jonathanb Silver badge

        Re: "Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois"

        I think the idea is that a small or medium sized business could have all their computers on the one corporate account.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois"

        No one in the world uses 81 windows devices on the same account....

        Think its probaly that the previous limit of 5 was seen to be too small so needed to be increased .... given that something like 10 or 20 might be seen as "easily sufficient" there's always the ghost of "640kB RAM is plenty" around so they wanted a big number ... and choosing 81 at the same time as launching Windows 8.1 seemed like a good way of competing with Google's penchanty for "cute numbers" (e.g. their bid for that patent bundle of "pi million dollars".

      4. Jabberwolf

        Re: "Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois"

        You're missing the point aren't you?

        That a user will never have to worry or be limited to logging on their account to another device and be limited because, as you said, no one uses 81 devices with the same account.

        You have the fact in hand, just not the point buddy.

      5. whatsa

        Re: "Windows 8 fans out-enthuse Apple fanbois"

        Have a think about businesses.

        your may have multiple tablets that are used by employees

        also PCs at key locations and not just you personal PC and phone.

        All of these systems may need access by multiple people.

        This is more enterprise thinking not toy thinking

        which is personal use.

    3. Stephen Channell
      Happy

      apples & pears

      The big difference is that Windows 8 allows multiple logons to the same device, where apple likes you to run the risk of in-app purchases every time you let a kid use your iPad.

      A tech family will easily hit the limit with a PC, laptop & few tables without much sharing or any duplication.

  2. jake Silver badge

    Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

    One wonders how many of the fan bois are being payed by microsoft to spout this nonsense.

    (Don't get me wrong, apple's OSX is a bloated piece of shit too.)

    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

      What do you actually mean by that? Can you give real, actual examples of what you see as needless bloat? And what is your ideal operating system that does not exhibit this bloat?

      GJC

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

        "What do you actually mean by that?"

        What part of "bloated piece of shit" do you not understand?

        "Can you give real, actual examples of what you see as needless bloat?"

        Uh ... gigabytes of crap that aren't actually useful to the userbase?

        "And what is your ideal operating system that does not exhibit this bloat?"

        TOPS10/20 ... BSD comes close. I personally run Slackware.

        1. Test Man

          Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

          "Uh ... gigabytes of crap that aren't actually useful to the userbase?"

          *facepalm*

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

          @ jake "Uh ... gigabytes of crap that aren't actually useful to the userbase?"

          Here's the thing - when your user base numbers almost a billion, even minutely small percentages of that have to be considered when adding features. No question, Windows isn't a lightweight OS, but that's because it singularly fills the needs of nearly a billion users. And despite including so many features for so many people, it remains surprisingly fast and simple install and use.

          @ jake "BSD comes close. I personally run Slackware."

          I like Linux/Unix as much as the next guy, but anyone who promotes it in the context of a desktop OS for average every day people instantly looses all credibility. It's a disaster when it comes to comprehend-ability, ease of install, setup, management and use - for the average person. Sure, an Alpha Nerd or network/sys admin might have no problem, but the average person who just wants to sit down and be productive has neither the knowledge, nor the time or interest in gaining such knowledge, to be able to use Linux/Unix on an ongoing basis.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

        And what is your ideal operating system that does not exhibit this bloat?

        RSX-11M+ ?

        1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

          Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

          RSX-11 Was bloated when compared to RT-11

          1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

            Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

            RSX-11 Was bloated when compared to RT-11

            It was bigger, but the extra was useful, not unnecessary bloat. Well, mostly...

        2. keith_w

          Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

          RSTS/E or RT11

      3. Fihart

        Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

        Jesus, look at the disk space Windows retail pack occupies. Each iteration gets bigger and bigger. Win 3.1 came on a boxful of floppies, Win7 on a DVD.

        The growth has a lot to do with added (often pointless) features obviously, but lazy coding and cruft too.

        I wish I could still demonstrate how an early DOS computer could have a Word Processor and some documents all running from a single floppy disk.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

          "I wish I could still demonstrate how an early DOS computer could have a Word Processor and some documents all running from a single floppy disk."

          I can. IBM 5150, DOS 0.96beta and WP. Still runs quite nicely ...

          And it's a hell of a lot faster, seat of the pants, that the "modern" MSOffice on Win8 ...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

            >And it's a hell of a lot faster, seat of the pants, that the "modern" MSOffice on Win8 ...

            I 'd love to see it deal with an embedded visio diagram

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

              Or even a .docx file. Or a .odt file.

              1. jake Silver badge

                Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

                "Or even a .docx file.

                An anathema foisted on idiots by microsoft.

                " Or a .odt file."

                microsoft's implementation isn't exactly what I would call ".odf compliant".

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

                  Your petty prejudices aside, the fact remains that the aged system discussed won't read most people's documents, which was the point being made.

            2. jake Silver badge

              @AC1138 (was: Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.)

              The point was OS+word processor. Visio isn't exactly part of the issue.

        2. mmeier

          Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

          Been there since the days of CP/M. Happily left those days behind. Even an Atari ST with Word Processor is a lot less useful/capabel than a Atom based tablet pc with Word Processor. And the old Mega ST4 was a mighty powerful box in it's days

      4. Avatar of They
        Thumb Down

        Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

        Two UI's for a start? The windows 7 feel and the useless "was called Metro but isn't anymore."

        Two internet browsers (Actually 3 if you include the 64 and 32 bit versions)

        The list can easily go on but I should be working.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

      Ahh, so because you don't like it that must mean people who do must've been paid to like it.

      I like Windows 8 and I've yet to be offered money from Microsoft.

      It's not perfect (no software is) and it wont match everyone's tastes (no software will) but it matches my usage and as a consumer that's all I care about. The People's hub means I'm not logging onto Facebook or Twitter individually. The Live Tile means I don't have to check my emails or the websites to see if I have any new notifications. That is a significant part of my main usage of my PC and its easier and quicker in Windows 8

      1. jake Silver badge

        @ MattEvansC3 (was:Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.)

        Enjoy your bliss, consumer. Who am I to tell you what to do.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @ MattEvansC3 (was:Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.)

          @Jake: "Who am I to tell you what to do."

          Isn't that basically all you do here? You bang on about everything as if you're the expert in every subject known to man, delivering lectures about how great you are and how your way of doing everything is the best, peppered with crass references to how much money you have.

          You should probably look this up and try to understand it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

    3. John 172

      Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

      @jake - One wonders how many of the fan bois are being payed by microsoft to spout this nonsense.

      I got paid by Microsoft to like Windows 7. They've not paid me to like Windows 8 yet so I don't.

    4. Hans 1
      Joke

      Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

      >One wonders how many of the fan bois are being payed by microsoft to spout this nonsense.

      Who knows ?

      But counting your down votes, 19 of them read elReg, that is for sure.

    5. JLV

      Re: Win8 is a bloated piece of shit.

      So... anything your royal highness is not using is a piece of shit, basically? No explanations necessary?

      Oh, do grow up.

      I realize cutting out tard comments like yours would cut Reg traffic by 30% but I sure wouldna miss them.

      The reason fanbois get no respect is precisely because they act like you.

  3. Wang N Staines

    Microsoft's one device per city is coming into fruition.

    :-)

  4. Ian 55

    Amazon's way of doing it

    Their 'AppStore' program normally remembers your Amazon details, but every time you have to re-enter them for some unknown reason to log into it on an Android device, it goes 'Ooooh, a new device!!! Let me create "Ian's Nexus 7 10" to go with "Ian's Nexus 7 9" and "Ian's Nexus 7 8" and "Ian's Nexus 7 7" and "Ian's Nexus 7 6" and "Ian's Nexus 7 5" and "Ian's Nexus 7 4" and "Ian's Nexus 7 3" and "Ian's Nexus 7 2" and "Ian's Nexus 7"!!! There's no chance that they could actually be the same bit of kit..."

    Then it complains you have too many devices and so can't run the programs until you go to the Amazon website and delete some of this stupidity.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Amazon's way of doing it

      Nope have 4 android devices with App-store and never once have I seen that.

      1. Ian 55

        Re: Amazon's way of doing it

        Have you looked at your account to see how many devices Amazon think you have? Do you ever have to re-enter your account details on it?

        If it really doesn't do this for you, delete the date for the AppStore and see what it does. I would be very interested to know if it doesn't create a new device, because it's doing it here on three bits of kit running on Android 4.0, 4.2 and 4.3.

        1. David Nash Silver badge

          Re: Amazon's way of doing it

          Ooh yes it's doing that for me too. Who knew?

          Thanks for the tip, when it runs out I shall know why.

          Actually I don't know why it apparently randomly requires re-logins to Amazon apps from time to time anyway.

  5. Mystic Megabyte
    Linux

    Walled garden or walled wasteland?

    Complicated licensing, hoops to jump through, restrictions. reliance on an ID database that could go titsup.

    Is this really the OS of the 21st. century?

  6. Ralph B

    Will no one think of the developers?

    So, theoretically, developers of Apple apps can expect to sell 8.1 times more apps to Apple users than developers of Windows apps can expect to sell to Windows users.

    Now, there's probably a fair balance between developers and users to be found here, but I'm feeling it's closer to 10 than 81.

    1. h4rm0ny

      Re: Will no one think of the developers?

      I rather think the chances of any given Apple user buying the same app 8.1 times is pretty low.

      You do understand that Windows 8 / RT has actual user accounts, yes?

      1. Ralph B

        Re: Will no one think of the developers?

        > I rather think the chances of any given Apple user buying the same app 8.1 times is pretty low.

        Indeed. The kids and I share the same Apple account and have therefore installed the same app, bought once, on multiple devices (just not yet 10 of them.) Had we been running on separate accounts then we would have had to buy the same app multiple times.

        I had assumed that the new Windows install limit of 81 meant 81 installs on different devices, but your next comment makes me doubt this:

        > You do understand that Windows 8 / RT has actual user accounts, yes?

        Are you telling me that if you have more than 81 user accounts on the same Windows 8 / RT box then Microsoft will want you to buy another copy of the apps? Is this 81 install limit really counting installs on the same device, rather than on separate devices?

        If so, Microsoft have failed to "get it" more than I had ever imagined.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Sigh....

    81??

    Who sat down and decreed "The number is 81".

    Hell, make it 84 then at least we can assume it was some funny play on the meaning of life, the universe and everything....Like a back up or redundancy system "joke" or something slightly tongue-in-cheek...

    For the minute however, I am suffering utter pericombobulation trying to work out why 81...

    1. Frankee Llonnygog

      Re: Sigh....

      It's the Buzz Lightyear number - infinity + 1

    2. Michael B.

      Re: Sigh....

      The only thing I can think of is that is a play on the version number of Windows, 8.1 -> 81

      1. Lorin Thwaits
        Meh

        Re: Sigh....

        But when you do ver at the command prompt, it claims 6.4.

        I'm so damned confused.

    3. Valdearg

      Re: Sigh....

      Gee, could it possibly be because of the upcoming update to Windows 8.1?

      Shocking I know.

    4. Frumious Bandersnatch
      Coat

      Re: Sigh....

      For the minute however, I am suffering utter pericombobulation trying to work out why 81...

      For why? They're obviously preparing for IPv6 and the "Internet of Things". Having 81 licenses/machines should definitely be enough for anyone!

    5. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: Sigh....

      "Who sat down and decreed "The number is 81"."

      If he sat down with 99 bottles of beer, that's probably how far he got.

  8. Andy Jones

    Don't believe it has fanboys

    I do not believe anyone likes Windows 8, or more specifically the Metro crap. it is an absolute mess of an OS. How Microsoft could push that crap is beyond me. Trying to help people with it is difficult because you are constantly swearing yourself. In the end you have to bypass the Metro shite just to get any resemblance of an operating system to even try to solve the problems it produces.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Don't believe it has fanboys

      Sadly, there will soon be posts declaring that TIFKAM and Windows 8 is the greatest OS since Colossus first came to life.

      you can't please all of the people etc....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't believe it has fanboys

      I quite like the tiles menu, I like the active tiles, I don't use the apps though. Do I think it's the best thing in the world? No. I equally think that the fuss made over a menu taking up the whole screen is a tempest in a teacup. I also think that the underlying OS is actually an excellent piece of work.

    3. Neil Alexander

      Re: Don't believe it has fanboys

      I like Windows 8. I do exist, whether or not you choose to believe it.

    4. Greg J Preece

      Re: Don't believe it has fanboys

      I do not believe anyone likes Windows 8, or more specifically the Metro crap.

      *Wave*

      On certain devices (not necessarily desktops) Metro is great. You need to get over that.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    “Since we launched Windows 8, we heard growing feedback from many developers and from our most enthusiastic customers that the limit of 5 was not enough for their needs.”

    How many devices have the sold to date?

    Total sales / 81 = number of customers.

    That kind of puts a whole new slant on the market share arguments, doesn't it?

  10. tony2heads
    Devil

    81

    Should have made it 666

  11. Chad H.

    I can understand a phone for work and not work, but who other than a developer, needs 5, much less 81, concurrent mobile devices?

    1. h4rm0ny

      81 is obviously a symbolic figure (Windows 8.1) but if you have a family with more than five devices in it, you can use any of them under your account and have your purchased apps available. Families with more than five devices are a minority I would imagine, but I'm sure that there are plenty of them. Remember, we're talking phones, tablets, laptops and desktops here as MS are working on unification of the stores.

  12. big_D Silver badge

    81 times price

    The Windows fanboys can buy more kit for the same money, that is why they need a bigger allotment. :-P

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 81 times price

      >The Windows fanboys [...][need to] buy more kit [...] [as theirs keep breaking], that is why they need a bigger allotment. :-P

      Fixed that for ya!

      1. mmeier

        Re: 81 times price

        Actually we need LESS kit. After all we Windows users DO NOT need a separat tablet and desktop.

  13. Frank N. Stein

    Hmmm...

    Interesting. But this seems more aimed at software developers who Microsoft needs in order to fill the Windows App Store, rather than a move aimed at consumer fanbois/fangirls. What consumer customer needs to have 81 Windows devices? That's a business customer scenario. But I give credit to Microsoft for allowing a customer to have 81 devices under one user ID. That encourages adoption of more devices and that is certainly good for Microsoft.

  14. Hans 1

    Just imagine, at school, your prick of an offspring goes ahead and tells all his mates that by using his WinPh0ne credentials they can play the latest Assassin's Creed. He shares it and then, all of a sudden, daddy gets $1620 charged against his credit card, as 81 of the friend friends of your sons friends are using his credentials ... sounds like a really "cool" feature indeed.

    Then again, the offspring needs to find 81 friend friends of friends that use WinPh0ne, good luck with that when you live outside of Redmond, Washington!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So, here is a lesson in why you don't give your CC details to anyone else. Also why you use Xbox points, or whatever they're called to allow your kids to spend money on apps/in game.

  15. John Fielder

    i like windows 8

    bit of a confession, I LIKE WINDOWS 8, particularly on my Surface rt. The apps are consistent, easy to use and there are plenty available. Yes, the Surface does not do everything a desktop does, but who expects an Ipad to do everything an OSX machine does? The interface is very different, but the Start menu has been around for over 17 years, and it is totally unsuitable for touch. The Start screen lets you customise the links so you can get at your most used one quickly. I though all you IT lot were supposed to be forward thinking, but a simple interface change throws you??? Go and try a few different DOS programs and then complain (ctrl+k to print?)

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The developers won't be happy; they already don't make much (if anything) on WP. Now they will make even less. 81 devices, what is this the family, the extended family and the family you never hear from plan?

  17. This post has been deleted by its author

  18. Euripides Pants

    "our most enthusiastic customers"

    The MS blog post only has 4 comments. And one of those is from a Microsoft employee

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does anyone actually use Metro and Metro programs on the desktop by choice?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Customers or employees?

    "our most enthusiastic customers"

    The comment sections of articles leading up to the release of Windows 8 were inundated by *clearly* paid posts on Microsoft's behalf. Some of the language and phraseology used were right out of a marketing class, not something even an enthusiastic end user would say.

    And I'm not dumping on Windows 8, I actually like it just fine, but it's in Microsoft interest to portray their products as highly coveted, so one has to take certain things with a grain of salt.

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