Microsoft FAIL, Microsoft to reverse course on Windows 8

[DainBramaged]

Microsoft is preparing to perform a U-turn over key aspects of its much-maligned Windows 8 operating system. Andrew Hill, management editor, talks to the FT's Daniel Garrahan about why the company finds itself in a situation where it might have to promote a product it has moved on from. (2m 57sec)


http://video.ft.com/v/2362865932001/Microsoft-to-reverse-course-on-Windows-8?utm_source=taboola

[madrchsod]

1. well duh......

[DainBramaged]

2. Two words

Microsoft Bob

[WestStar]

42. 2 more words

Apple Lisa

[0rganism]

3. between that and the xbox one reveal fiasco...

not a great week for MS.

[Renew Deal]

4. What's wrong with the xbox?

The DRM?

[DainBramaged]

5. DRM KILLED SimCity it will kill XBox

My friends at Game Stop are livid about the pos.

[Logical]

8. What DRM? n-t

[bobduca]

10. No resale market for next gen games

The 2 and a half big players (Microsoft, Sony) are very resolved to screw the consumer over and gut the possibility of the secondary market.

Direct Download + always on DRM is the "logical" solution to killing all resale of games...

USED GAMES = MONEY THAT EA DOESNT WANT YOU TO SPEND!

[DainBramaged]

12. Just as they've done with PC games (key codes) they are doing with consoles

the gaming market will stagnate and Apple will flourish, as will Steam.

[Initech]

23. I will not purchase this piece of crap.

If Microsoft wants to screw it's customers, they won't get a dime from me.

[Logical]

9. What DRM? n-t

[Aerows]

28. Digital Rights Management

basically, they screw customers so that you can't resell a video game that you are done playing because they link it to your account and nobody else can buy it from you, even if you can sell the physical media.

It would be like if you owned a CD, but if you sold it to someone else, they couldn't listen to it because they don't have your account information. Or if you owned a book, and nobody could read it but you because they couldn't open the cover on it once you did.

[Logical]

34. I didn't know the new Xbox was going to do that. That sucks. n-t

[lhooq]

73. DRM is something to avoid!

DRM = digital rights management, aka copy protection. Remember copy protected floppies from 20 and 25 years ago? Yeah, it's a bad memory. Most ebook readers have DRM. Thus when you buy a book from Amazon in Kindle form, you don't really own it, not in the way you would own the paper and ink version.

Some software has it. Some digital media has it. However, some don't. There is no DRM on mp3 music files or jpg or png image files, for example. Therefore, you can share and redistribute such files as you wish ... though you might be breaking copyright laws. Breaking DRM is a popular pastime for hackers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS

[0rganism]

13. the DRM? the non-reusable install media? the Kinect surveillance state? the silly tie-in with TV?

I could go on, but others have said it much better than I could on my own:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7358-Xbox-One-out-of-Ten

Truly an amazing bit of PR disaster. As their "Reveal" went on, MS' stock price dropped while Sony and Nintendo's rose.

[Renew Deal]

15. Thanks

I mostly missed the announcement so I knew the big details about performance and DRM, but not much beyond that.

[REP]

17. ... so that dog will get shot to pieces in a cut scene

Thanks for the vid link. Laughed my ass off, and I only second-hand game.

[DainBramaged]

18. How many people want the camera on while their kids play in their underwear?

even though the light is off? How long before the camera is hacked?

[Renew Deal]

80. Camera hacking is already possible with laptops and I've rarely heard a complaint

Someone I know got a computer virus the other day. It took a picture of him and put it on the screen. I don't know if the picture was transmitted or not. I imagine that at some point cameras will be hacked in the way you stated.

[Chisox08]

20. What made the reveal even more of a disaster

is if you are one of the three people who owned a Kinect and watched it on your 360 every time the presenter said a kinect command it caused the 360's with it to go crazy.

[0rganism]

24. hahaha i didn't know that!

So their presentation fucked directly with the audience -- that's freakin' classic!

[Apophis]

88. This.

I'll be getting the PS4 in the next gen.

[Dash87]

35. One a day check-ins required.

Literally the dumbest idea I've seen yet. I'm not sure how it will play out, but it seems pretty fail-ish.

[Renew Deal]

79. I agree that it's a dumb idea

Especially in light of the Sim City fiasco.

[tridim]

77. Nothing, this thread is about a few people with an unhealthy hate for Microsoft.

[DirkGently]

46. Saw that. Xbox One looks like it will sell like

coldcakes. Can't sell or loan your games, and then they think people want to yell and wave to control their televisions?

Microsoft seems to think the customer is its enemy.

Pretty soon, the feeling will be mutual.

[Rise Rebel Resist]

68. forget rental of games too

[PoliticAverse]

6. There's an 8, who knew?! n/t

[Renew Deal]

7. Other than the start menu, Windows 8 is OK

Of course, that's a huge factor. If they get rid of the start menu, they completely undermine their Windows 8 strategy. It would be a big deal.

[bluestate10]

38. The start menus and navigation. Microsoft made bone headed decisions with each

of those two critical functionality features and is paying a price for their arrogance.

[quinnox]

11. meh, they should just start on windows 9 and change it back to how it was before

call it "classic" windows instead of windows 9. Windows 8 is such an epic fail, best to dump it as soon as possible and let people forget about it and that it ever existed.

[Aerows]

27. Windows 8

was the stupidest direction I've ever seen a software company take. When you make things so complicated that people have to type in "calc" to find the calculator or "notepad" to find a freaking text editor because you've made it so difficult to locate things, you've failed.

Even my phone is easier to use than that.

[quinnox]

33. yup, I think so too

It was their New Coke moment.

[davidpdx]

62. That's a good comparison

[Dash87]

36. Windows 8 does every right except being user friendly. It's so atrociously non-user friendly.

Of course, not being user friendly ruins the operating system, so that's kind of a big thing to get right.

[bobduca]

14. Been following windows weekly (leo laporte's podcast)

And the start menu changes really are not that big of a deal... not big enough of a course reversal..

The "Windows 8 UI" is horrible on the desktop, unusable IMO. Its ok on tablets with touch, but the hoops you have to go through if you don't have touch input device is just ridiculous.

Its as if they just went "eh if we make the desktop less usable people will be FORCED into the full screen apps mode!"

They NEED to reverse course, imo or windows is doomed.

[DainBramaged]

16. GM has announced they will NOT make their Global Connect software compatible with WIN 8 or IE10

Major hoop jumping not worth the effort, and now they only recognize Vista and 7 for programming cars with MDI.


Yet, much of their software runs on an IPad.


Who knew Apple worked?

[Junkdrawer]

19. There's nothing wrong with Vista....n/t

[Junkdrawer]

21. And Office 95 is GREAT!!!n/t

[Aerows]

26. Neither of those

is worse than Windows 8.

[Paulie]

32. It's even worse than Windows ME

[Junkdrawer]

37. Wow...THAT is bad.

I bought the wife a new netbook for Xmas...2 months early to avoid getting stuck with the hassle of a downgrade - just on the rumors of how bad.

Never actually tried to use the beast.

[Drale]

31. Other than it uses a rediculous amount of memory

and asks you to confirm every time you try and do something, yeah Vista was great

[Junkdrawer]

40. At least it ran...somewhat....

Office 95 (especially Access 95) just flat-out didn't work.

I mean I felt I was owed a refund. Period.

[madinmaryland]

41. Can't we just make this an XP appreciation thread. The only version that has

managed to stay stable, other than 98 SE.

Unless of course we want to go back to DOS 3.2

[Junkdrawer]

45. XP is what I'm running this second....

I'm a developer. My machine is duel boot and XP runs ALL my old and newer software projects - good for when I want to borrow a hunk of old code.

When I'm ready to deploy, I run the very latest versions of MS Visual Studio on Win 7 and I convert at the last second.

In short, XP is forward compatible MUCH MORE than Win 7 is backward compatible.

[Newest Reality]

52. Yay XP.

Still using it and its just fine the way it is.

[Warpy]

55. XP was their best system, period

I'm still cursing a few of the user friendly control panel things that went byebye when they came out with Win7.

I have two ancient and wheezing XP boxes I'm keeping, just in case.

[riqster]

56. Windows 2000 was their best.

Lean and mean, fast and clean. Of course, it was just NT with a basic UI.

Windows 8 is OK if you ignore all the cutesy shit and pin your apps to the desktop. The idiocy was trying to make a tablet and a PC run on the same OS.

[burnodo]

66. Win 7

I havent had one problem with that. I agree that XP SP3 was the most stable up to 7.

[Kolesar]

81. WinXP downloaded an update to .NET that made my PC unusable, forever

I visited the Microsoft updates page several times to analyze and reupdate my PC and they never got it right. It was some software module that they last updated several years ago.

I bought a new PC to solve the problem. The old Compaq was nine years old.

[datasuspect]

22. windows is a virus

[im1013]

67. ...

[PD Turk]

84. !!!

[Aerows]

25. Uh, no surprise there

Windows 8 sucks. It makes Vista and ME look good.

[TreasonousBastard]

29. BFD-- "Consumers" aren't buying shit but phones and tablets...

so it's really what the Commerce Department, Ford, Bank of America and others who buy PC by the thousands want-- which is often enough 2-3 cycles in. My new work government computer I got last year runs, of all things, Vista-- a highly modified Vista that few would recognize and took them a few years to properly reconfigure and debug. Methinks many companies are just getting used to Win7 and won't upgrade again until 9 or 10, or whatever is in the works.

Consumers are buying phones and tablets and really don't give a shit what the screen looks like if they can tweet. They care even less about what 6 nerds on a blog think about operating systems unless they ask their "expert" friends and get the bad news-- which is always that the latest Microsoft effort sucks rocks and the last one doesn't suck rocks any more. You can never go wrong bashing Microsoft.

I admit that there are a few things I hate about Win8, but there have been a few things I've hated about every OS since Atari. Commodore, and DOS 2.1. Overall, it's been stable, fast, and runs most of the software I use just fine. So, I have no major gripes except it I had to download Freecell as an app and haven't figured out how to get it to side by other programs. The Bejeweled clone is a nice time waster, though.

I do hate the tiles, but one mouse click and they go away. Or hit the Windows key to toggle them on and off. No Start button (who uses that anyway?) but the desktop is identical to what I have on the XP box and the 7 laptop except for nicer backgrounds.

[bluestate10]

43. The Start button used to house many of the frequently used APPs, that is why some people

want it back. You may be a computer junkie who likes going out to look for software applications, but when I buy computers, I have fucking uses for them and don't have an interest or the time to look for APPs that make the computer do tasks that I need done, I would rather trash the whole damned setup and buy something that works the way I need it to. Microsoft made an enormously insane decision to put software that is better suited for phones on laptops, it should have instead focused on making software that was optimized for each platform then make invisible to the user APPs that links the two.

I have used computers long enough to remember when connecting a high-end camera to a computer to download photos required hoop jumping and each camera manufacturer required download of it's software to a computer. Now, when a camera is hooked up to a Windows system or almost any other peripheral device is hooked up, the computer instantly recognizes the peripheral and allows instant interfacing with the computer. Microsoft has had success in the past making use on computers simpler, but Windows 8 was a dramatic diversion.

[TreasonousBastard]

49. I don't use the Start button because I have dozens of...

programs I use very conveniently stored on the desktop, with some lesser used ones in folders. Two clicks at most without going through three columns of stuff and I'm back to work at something. I used the Start button as an easy way to get to things like system restore, which I rarely had to get to.

So far, this Win8 machine does do everything I need with little fuss-- Opera and Firefox for browsing, Thunderbird for mail, Explorer2 for file management, Irfanview and Xnviewfor image management, WordPerfect, LibreOffice and Abiword for writing, various utilities for calendars, calculators, converters and other stuff... Adding more bit by bit, but with few minor exceptions everything works better than before.

So, what's the problem?

[Aerows]

72. You mean other than

attempting to do something as simple as type a document resulting in some other window flying open because you accidentally moved the mouse wrong? Or other than the fact that you have to configure everything so that you can find it?

It's ridiculous, and is practically non-functional without a touch screen. It's certainly not suitable for the desktop. The windows flying open derailing my train of thought was a disaster.

[TreasonousBastard]

89. Haven't had the flying windows problem, and organizing...

my desktop is no worse than in any other Windows version.

So I'm back to what's the problem?

[Aerows]

91. I'm very tidy with the desktop

and the flying open windows issue is real. I'm far from the first to experience it. It's been a gripe since day one of 8's release (because that was when they removed the start button in RTM).

My street creds with MS OS's could hardly be better. I've been an Exchange administrator, and an Active Directory + DNS administrator. If it pisses me off, it probably pisses a novice off worse. Don't even start with the setting up applets, because I did, and it still infuriated the hell out of me.

I'll take Windows 7 and Linux if MS insists on going down this road of stupidity.

[randome]

78. Not eveyone can work with a cluttered desktop. Some of us want to organize things our way.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[TreasonousBastard]

90. I don't have a cluttered desktop, and if you mean...

"organize things our way" as in click the start button and find a list of programs you could have had on the desktop then Boo-Hoo.

Life is just so terrible...

[Silent3]

53. Just "apps"... it's not an acronym or initialism for anything.

Short for "application", no need for ALL CAPS.

Oh, and that computer made by Apple? In case this comes up, it's a Mac, not a MAC.

[sakabatou]

30. Win 8 was made pretty much for tablets

NOT desktops nor laptops. I mean, WTF, Microsoft?

[bluestate10]

44. Microsoft was trying to maximize profits by squeezing as many users into one box as possible.

Now, the company has a fuck-up that could threaten it's existence. I hear people that never questioned Microsoft products wondering about better choices that don't often put them through a wringer when they upgrade computer systems and/or software.

[Chan790]

82. I was one.

Unfortunately, I will never buy Apple. I refuse to even comparison-shop their products. I've used them...I hate them. I hate their OS, I hate their design philosophy and I loathe how they organize things.

Ubuntu Linux is great if you know enough about computing to be the sort of person able to fix frequent issues from small problems; it's an OS for computer professionals. It's not user-friendly for the average low-information computer user...it'd be more so if it came with WINE already set-up and functional.

Most people just want an OS that works for them out of the box and has no hassles.

Currently, there isn't one on the market. Not OS X. Not Win 8. Not any flavor of Linux.

It's an open market if someone wanted to throw together a simple and functional OS that runs all Win-compatible software without modification or the need for complex emulators which require a substantial amount of program-specific tweaking every time you install new software.

[RedCappedBandit]

50. My thoughts exactly

Just, wtf.

[Up2Late]

39. Yeah, well nobody was ready for Windows 8, since most had just switched to Windows 7

I guess they learned nothing from all the negative reviews Windows Vista got.

I went back to Community College in July 2009 and only about 1/2 of the schools computers were running Vista, then Windows 7 came out in October 2009, I got a free upgrade for my new Toshiba Laptop in November 2009 and it wasn't till the Summer of 2011 that my community college finally upgraded all the computers to Windows 7. Then, 6 months later, Microsoft is talking Windows 8. Dumb, dumb, DUMB.

What they should have done is called it Windows Touch or Windows Mobile and then made it backward compatible with older machines.

[bluestate10]

47. Your last sentence touches on where Microsoft failed. They were so arrogant that they

chose to ignore how people use communication devices. Microsoft engineers should have walked out on the streets of Seattle and asked passersby whether they used computers occasionally or semi-regularly. Then they should have randomly chosen a selection of people to test software ideas on. If Microsoft engineers did talk to users, I am sure it was in internet cafes where collections of pinheads that love messing around with computers and mobile devices gather - the MS engineers learned not a fucking thing that was useful for making a good product. Most people that buy computers and software have specific uses for those products and are only interested in doing what they need to do, the majority of buyers don't have time or desire to sit around "learning" a system and looking around for "cool" software APPs.

[riqster]

57. Microsoft is a very insular world.

They don't grok the rest of the planet.

[Aerows]

74. The UI for the desktop is a nightmare

I swear to God I nearly threw my new laptop out the window because trying to type a damn document resulted in all kinds of shit randomly flying open because I moved the mouse wrong. I am pretty much one of those pinheads, but when I have to resort to typing in notepad because I can't find a text editor, you've failed miserably on the usability scale.

I could have probably gotten over that and configured everything, but it was easier to just install Windows 7 and have a functional OS LOL.

[davidpdx]

63. That makes sense about a different platform for tablets and mobile phones

I have sworn up and down that I will not buy a machine with Windows 8 on it. My current machine is 2 1/2 years old and has Windows 7 and it works really well.

[Up2Late]

64. Mine too, Windows 7 is a little slow to boot on my 2009 Toshiba Laptop, but...

on my desktop, with it's Intel 4 core i7 processor, 6GB of Ram and 1 GB of VRam, it works great. I won't be buying windows 8 for this desk top computer.

Btw, I was the same way with Windows Vista, which I thought they brought out about 2 years too early too, Windows 7 was basically, Windows Vista v2.0, which is what I think they are planning for Windows 8. I heard they might call it Windows 8.5

[davidpdx]

71. Vista 2.0

That would be a travesty.

[krispos42]

70. It seems that Microsoft failed to realize the following:

That, when the average PC was capable of playing video without a problem and the Windows version was stable, people stopped seeing the need to upgrade so often because they didn't see the need to spend the money, deal with the hassle of transferring files (or entire hard drives) to a new desktop, reinstall all their programs (which you may or may not have the discs for, and which may or may not work on the new OS), and learn a new system for no effective increase in performance.

And if you replace your C-drive with a new one every few years (cloning the old one), then you'll almost certainly never face having to buy a new PC because of hard drive failure and data loss. I'm on my 3rd C-drive; only 2 months ago did the original
C-drive finally toast.

I'm on a 9-year-old PC with XP, SP3.

[Incitatus]

48. Did they not do focus groups on 8?

I'm not a computer expert, but know enough to solve most problems for the novice user on their other operating systems. Every single person that I know that has bought a new computer with Windows 8 is very irritated at the changes. I have not switched and do not indent to. I just upgraded my computers from XP to Windows 7. I'm about to start experimenting with Linux. I'm getting tired of MS.

[RedCappedBandit]

51. Honestly, I think I'm done with Microsoft AND Apple

I'm simply going to have to read up on Linux for my next build. With Steam working to make gaming so much easier with Linux, I personally have no reason to stick with Microsoft any longer.

[Silent3]

54. Between Windows 8 and the "Launchpad" feature added to OS X Mountain Lion...

...not to mention more "full screen" applications, I was worried that a trend was gaining momentum to treat desktop computers as if they were merely giant cell phones.

Hopefully the negative reaction to Windows 8 will not only be noticed by Microsoft, but Apple will pick up on this too, and resist making their next desktop OS too much more like iOS.

[Up2Late]

65. Oh, I wouldn't count on Apple being that smart, did you see what they did to Final Cut Pro?

I took a class to learn it in 2010, Final Cut Pro, version 7, but in 2011 they went and "upgraded it" to version 10 and completely changed the way it worked, so that it would work more like iMovie, which, I guess, was a cheep video editing program that I think came with OS10 (OSX), not really sure, because I've never used iMovie, I just know that what I learned in class is practically worthless now.

After Apple did that, my school stopped teaching FCP and switched to teaching Adobe Premiere.

[ecstatic]

58. Wow. But if true, it's good that they're cutting their losses now

rather than later. Switching the OS to the extent that they did was a huge mistake. People like my mom were finally comfortable using Windows (took her like 15 years), then she had to adjust and learn Windows 7 (along with the completely changed Office Suite). To ask her to start from scratch once again would only open up opportunities for a Windows Vista or 7 copycat OS.

[ohheckyeah]

59. ......

Ms Reller said PC users had faced difficulties adapting to the new software.

Some PC users just didn't want to be bothered with having to adapt. Why would I want to? I use a PC as a PC, not a friggin' touchpad.

If I want apps I'll get a phone or a touchpad, but I damn sure don't want that clutter on my desktop computer that I actually use for WORK.

[defacto7]

60. I gave up on Windows 8 because

I could never get it to install on my TI-1000. Damnedest thing.

[DainBramaged]

61. One last thing, NO ONE is buying Microsoft equipped phones or tablets

miniscule numbers, ask Nokia.

[Aerows]

75. Why would you

when both Android and Apple have tons of apps for their phones and tablets while MS doesn't. If MS does have a version, it comes out far later than it does for Android and Apple, so why bother?

[peacefreak]

69. I was in the local Blue Box

looking, kicking tires the other night. The sales kid told me straight out NOT to buy Windows 8. That's how bad it is.

[knitter4democracy]

76. I bought a touchscreen laptop last winter, and I like it.

I can see why people would hate it on a desktop, but it's not bad if you have a touchscreen. Of course, now I keep trying to make my desktop at work act like my touchscreen laptop, but that's another problem.

[Zorra]

83. When my old laptop crashed, my computer dude told me not to buy a new one with Windows 8.

My old machine had Vista, and Vista was an absolutely horrible POS operating system, and after the frustration of VIsta, I wasn't about to buy, and be driven insane by, a new machine with another Microsoft experiment in customer torture and planned obsolescence.

In two days he rebuilt my laptop for 2/3 the cost of a decent new machine. He tripled my memory and installed Windows 7 Ultimate, and it's like he turned my 68 VW Beetle into the Starship Enterprise.

I'm hopelessly technologically challenged, so I'm really, really glad I listened to computer dude, after hearing all these complaints about Windows 8, and now watching this video. Microsoft deserves whatever losses they incur for selling deliberately defectively engineered products.

Beam me up, Scotty.

[Rex]

85. THIS is why I don't want Bill Gates anywhere near a public school.

He doesn't give a FUCK. It is and always will be about making money for him. Look, Windoz is great IF you get the right version. WindowsME...crap, Windows Vista...crap, Windows 8...crappola.

Stick with WinXP, Win7 or if you have an older system, Windows 2003.

[tridim]

86. Bill Gates doesn't work for Microsoft.

[Rex]

87. So he doesn't make any revenue off of his products?

Nice try.