Windows 8.1 - why'd I wait so long?

It does not matter if you think something is easily remedied, beneficial or otherwise, if other people have real problems. Your opinion is irrelevant to them. I find partial differential equation a riot, does not mean everyone should dabble in them. Ignore everyone in fact. Just look at the sales. Success? No. Why? Does it suck? Seems like it. People vote with their wallet.
Mrk

 

and a back inventory of useless OEM discs to rid themselves of.

 

Even though my laptop can run Windows 8, after my hard drive was replaced I have tried for three days to activate with no success even with a valid 8 key. Spent 2 hours with a MS tech and still nothing. very frustrated..hangs on trying to connect

 

That's just about a nice sum for this thread.

 

To me, sales aren't always an effective bellweather. Especially in terms of a largely ignorant public (especially in America), and especially considering anything remotely technical, or complicated. McDonalds is the best selling burger, but do you consider them a good burger? Dell is the best selling PC, but they are pretty hideous overall. Linksys sells the most routers, and generally anyone with a good base in IT thinks they are pretty lame. Norton sells the most AV's, is it the best?

People voting with wallets seems to not yield good results overall. In fact, you'd probably be better off going the opposite direction than 'people' voting with their wallets. Statistics are on your side if you do.

 

Then the best decision would be to ditch Windows and move to Linux...

hqsec

 

Absolute agreement on that, which reinforces my theory of 'run the other way' of where people are voting with their wallets. (generally)

The problem for me is, I play a lot of computer games and Linux is not a viable gaming platform at this time. I know it does well, and can play games, but the majority I play aren't ported to Linux. For non-gamers, or light gamers, Linux would be the best option. Mageia, Mint-Maya, all good choices, and I would highly advise anyone not stuck in gaming to transition to those.

I love deploying Linux for people.. LOVE IT. A friend of mine recently bought a stack of older laptops for $50 each, dropped Mageia on them, and has some nice little rigs for his family. WIN.

 

Some of us already did.

 

So in the end, this thread has turned into yet another Windows 8 hating parade. Wow, I wonder how many internet discussions out there which say Windows 8 is a disaster and there's absolutely nothing good we can take from it.

 

and some of us went back to Windows after the experiments.

 

Your counterargument is irrelevant, as well.
It's not about best or not - it[s about millions not wanting this.
So it's the bad guys, you mentioned, it's EVERYONE.

As to routers and linksys, you're plain wrong - your personal opinion ONLY.
Dell, it's your personal opinion, and again irrelevant.

Wallets - excellent results, fact, MS changed the start screen once, and they will do it again, to restore the old menu. So, it's supreme results against a company driven by money.

Mrk

 

Everyone's opinions, arguments, counterarguments and wallets are irrelevant. The only things relevant are one's own experience and budget.

 

I wouldn't say that, it been more a discussion about the pros & cons of the OS, it amazes me that any criticism of Win8x seems to be called hatred of it

 

Mrkvonic

You say it sucks... but after reading your review of 8.1 on your site why did I come away with the idea that you would be all to willing to trash anything Microsoft? Maybe it had something to do with that giant image of a hand with the middle finger extended directed at MS that you closed your article with.

Or maybe the original people who reviewed the software, (media included) didn't understand it and trashed it. It caught on and spread. People tried the evaluation software, saw the difference, dumped it, and piled on...

As any one who every owned a business, or marketed a product knows - perception can become reality. I believe that is exactly what happened in this case. It is not necessarily correlated with the quality of the product at all.

Isn't that the whole point of the original poster. Considering all the negative things he had heard about win 8.1, he was elated to find that he was very pleasantly surprised.

How many others are still in the camp of not wanting to try it because of what they have heard. I know I was one of them, and at this point wouldn't go back.

So for those of you who may still be on win xp and need a new computer and are putting it off because all those you can find have win 8 installed; I would say - don't hesitate. It will almost certainly be the 64 bit version, will come with 4 or 8 gigs of ram, and especially if you have an older system, will fly in comparison.

 

Because you decided that reading a single article is enough.
I've used XP, loved it. I am using 7, love it quite a bit.
I think emet is the best security product for windows.
I really love Nokia 520 with WP.
But 8.X sucks.
Mrk

 

Game, Set, Match.

 

I can only speak from a few hours experience with Win 8 and I didn't care for it, and from 2 computer repair places where I've mentioned Win 8. In both repair shops, I was told that they absolutely LOVE Windows 8. They're making money replacing it with Win 7.

One shop owner said fully half his work involves replacing 8. He said there's nothing wrong with 8 and that he has it on his home computers, but people just don't like the metro desktop.

 

Classic Shell is really important to reduce upgrade shock, even from a support perspective. I just deployed Windows 8.1 on a small business with 16 computers. They love it - of course classic shell is right there with them as they 'ease' into Metro. Everyone seems to notice the systems are snappier, like they recieved a hardware upgrade.

8.1 is pretty - $30-$50OEM, $70 or so Retail Box (shipped) from an authorized seller on Ebay.. It's like adding a few hundred Mhz to the processor in terms of overall 'feel' of the desktop, booting, shutdowns, etc.

 

people are creatures of habits, not prone to liking changes generally.

Windows 8.1 is a great OS.
i think trying to marry a desktop and a tablet interface (Metro) was an horrible idea.
still think it is.
i think i installed Win 8 at 3 different occasions and uninstalled it in frustration after an hour or so.
on the 4th time, i swore to myself that i would try it for a full week before making a decision.
i'm glad i did.

the OS itself is screaming fast.

 

Yes, it was. And MS is paying for it big time... Maybe they'll learn, eventually.

 

Ah, but through that maneuver, how many users did Microsoft sucker push into that type of business model? One where Microsoft's store is the store, which will see everything you search for and install, where Microsoft gets a cut of all the software you purchase, where Microsoft controls the distribution of apps and their updating and whether they continue to run or not, where targeted advertising is built into the platform and apps so that they merrily pulls ads from Microsoft's advertising network, all wrapped up in a pretty Microsoft Account bow.

It was almost surely a wise decision from a business POV, and a fairly safe bet considering that consumers rolled over in mass when similar models were pushed upon them elsewhere.

 

i might be wrong but i think Microsoft idea was to sensitize computer users to the Tablet OS.

so people would be familiar with the interface and make them consider buying a Win 8 smartphone or tablet instead of the iPad/Phone and Android products.

 

I just did a quick read of this thread, and I have no wish to update at the present stage. Sticking with XP for the foreseeable future.