Windows 7 - My Last Microsoft OS

[woodchuck]

I've always loved the fact that Microsoft has been practical about what is NOW in their OSes. They don't rely on forward looking nonsense that is 10 years away, and that I why I have loved media center for the past 7 or so years. It works well, and does the day to day of 10' experience better than anything. Now it appears MS is off on a new tangent, doing what Apple and others have done, and that is to abandon what is practical today and move to a vision of tomorrow that is still years away. I just can't see myself moving to win8... Why should I??? Win7 has been epic on my 4 computers in this house. Win8 adds some crummy metrosexual interface, which none of my current displays support, and nearly abandons MC, unless you pay for a product they have clearly deprecated. Will my next OS be MS? I doubt it. Too bad, cause I have been loyal for almost 20 years.

Any chance of a marketing lemming at MS ever seeing this?? I doubt it. Marketing lemmings care about the latest hip thing, not with what their customers want. I'm starting to be over Microsoft, and I thought I would never say that. Maybe I should post this over at the windows experts community, but I know for certain that is where MS sends good ideas to die, just like TGB.

[NWW]

The problem I see is, that when you look at your average Joe, their use of a computer is really basic. Google, Facebook and Email. That's it. And buying a computer to do just these things doesn't make any sense. I look at my mom for instance, never used a computer in her life, but does have an iPad. Works wonders for her… Same thing with my sister. Doesn't need her laptop anymore now that she has a smartphone.

Admitedly, Microsoft is moving in this direction: a mainstream tablet experience. They don't hope that Win 8 will be on the desktop, they hope that the tablets they sell will be able to gain back marketshare. And in a way, it does make sense. How many times did we (as the familly's appointed geek) had to fix a problem on a computer just because "you did something wrong with it". People don't care about file systems, pagefiles, how much ram does a PC have… They just want their fix of Farmville and stalking hot girls from their past.

This is the reason why my desktop will stay Win 7. Production/gaming machine. But my laptop and future tablet? Win 8, all the way.

[bobbob]

i think you're both more right than you know. The desktop model is in decline, the physical media model is in decline, the traditional tv networks are all in decline. HTPC users never have been and never will be part of MS's target market and why should they be, the number of people that use Windows for that is tiny. at best we're a beta testing group for features that might make it into future OS's for use by a wider market. It seems to me that Win7 will be the last OS that is truly aimed at the desktop model, because as you note the focus is on mobile tablets and streaming these days.

personally i think we should stop complaining, be grateful for what we've got and push Win7 as far as it will go because i think 7MC is the last big hit in a slow decline to obscurity for this type of thing. sure, there will always be xbmc but it'll never be as good as 7MC

[adam1991]

How many times did we (as the familly's appointed geek) had to fix a problem on a computer just because "you did something wrong with it".

Never in this family.

Macintosh and non-administrative users FTW. (Six of them, plus the eight at my brother's place 6 hours away.)

Now ask me how many times I had to review requests for administrative access? Not all that many, and I approach each request with a smile, knowing that I am potentially preventing exactly what you described.

[trooper11]

How many times did we (as the familly's appointed geek) had to fix a problem on a computer just because "you did something wrong with it".

Never in this family.

Macintosh and non-administrative users FTW. (Six of them, plus the eight at my brother's place 6 hours away.)

Now ask me how many times I had to review requests for administrative access? Not all that many, and I approach each request with a smile, knowing that I am potentially preventing exactly what you described.

+1

Since Win 7, I haven't had that worry at all. You can really lock things down and it allows for many safety nets to restore a pc.

Heck, for all the hate on Win 8, I love the fact that they are expanding the safety nets and make it easy to use those features by the average joe.

[Danno100]

+1 Win 7 is the last Win OS I will use. I think the new tablet will be like the Zune, a real dud. Home users will convert to other devices (e.g. Apple) faster than business users (many of whom still use Win XP).

[Venom51]

I look at it from a couple different view points. WIndows 7 is really good and Microsoft has an uphill battle moving people through the upgrade process to WIn8. New machines with Win8 will sell the same as new machines with WIN7 did. How well the Surface/WIn8 tablets fair is anybody's guess. I suspect they will not sell in numbers that will make Microsoft happy. I do however see more touchsrceen monitors in the future and for that to become fairly common to the point it will be hard to buy one that isn't.

XP users should have fallen off a cliff already and anybody still hanging on to that OS is likely a large sloth like corporation that just can't get it's sht together. If you are home uer still running XP on anything other than a machine you bought 10 years ago you are a fool to not be on WIn7.

[rantanamo]

sorry, but this thread is way off base. Anyone that has used Windows 8, knows its not any different than Windows 7 minus the start menu. I get that 7 is great, but Windows 8 desktop has the same functions, but is better with hardware support, drivers, SSD, networking, RAM usage and minor things like copying which was never corrected in 7. And this is on a Release Preview. Not even a release candidate. Sorry, its not personal, but when I read something like this, you might as well substitute windows 7 for windows 8. Its plain misleading about the OS. If you are truly using windows 8 on a desktop and you are using metro for anything other than launching a metro app you might like, or to find start menu functions in the same fashion you did with 7, then you are just doing it wrong. My 58 year old dad figured that out in seconds after I installed it for him. I showed him metro and what it was for. He liked the easy search. Then I showed him the desktop tile, the windows key and said, you pretty much never need to go into metro unless you just need to find a program. He understand and even said it was really snappy and not much different than 7.

Metro is a whole other ballpark and serves a purpose, Just ask those shocked reporters or the few that have had the opportunity to use it on an x86 tablet or touchscreen laptop. They will tell you why it exists and why threads like this are pretty alarmist. Metro is not in the direction of what Apple and Android are doing. If anything, Metro is moving towards the opposite direction. Android and iOS are basically desktop icon ecosystems with transition screens and widget style alarms. They look and essentially operate like a spineless windows system. Win8, like WP7 integrates alarms, widgets and icons into tiles, with a simple system list. As a touch interface it is the only one moving towards simplicity, while Android and iOS attempt to "bulk up". Win8 is also the only one of the mobile OSs o full support x86 architecture. Therefore it can run as a full fledged computer if that's what you desire.

Again, I understand the initial confusion about the OS, but nothing personal, this is very misleading for desktop users. If anything, if you are a windows user, a more efficient OS, with a similar experience should be a welcome thing...........unless you just don't like Windows 7. If you don't then that's fine and you probably won't like 8. But to say that you like 7 and don't like 8 because its different is just very misleading.

[bobbob]

forget reason, we're in dummy spitting mode at the moment

[STC]

Bobbob is referring to a pacifier for those across the pond.

[Ack]

Bobbob is referring to a pacifier for those across the pond.

I wondered what that meant.