A First Look at Windows 8 "Blue"

What averages ... or is it which averages?

 

I believe MS should start using that as a slogan to sell Win 8 Blue or Red or Orange or whatever.

 

I feel that no amount of work by MS will reverse the damage done with the release of Windows 8, Blue won't help.

My Windows 8 journey began on Day 1 of the Consumer Preview release in 02/12 & ended up with buying two upgrades. One works flawlessly with Classic Shell installed, the other, was a waste of money. That one was actually the first that I purchased, originally for my HP desktop, then was transferred to a Toshiba notebook, it's basically unused.

While I do agree that MS had to compete in the tablet market, Windows 7 has proven to be quite adequate for the majority of Windows users & likely will remain so. In fact, MS had a great cash cow in Windows 7/Office 2010 going, there was no need to make any changes (for desktop/non-tablet portable users) at least until XP's support ended.

Why fix what wasn't broken? Windows RT was all that was needed for the tablet market. Not to mention all of these changes that MS pushed the OEM's into to prevent dual booting with alternate OS's, or even Windows 7.

What MS has done, was forced many customers to look outside of those four window panes, including myself. Linux Mint is now the 3rd most used OS in the world, behind Apple & Windows. And is quite easy to use. More AV companies are releasing Linux security these days, as surely these users will be targeted as growth occurs. Sure, right now, Linux usage is at give or take 2%, however I recall in the early 80's when Bill Gates had less than that, desperately fighting for market share.

Windows "Blue ", which evidently isn't going to be released as a preview for us to test drive, will do little, if anything, to boost Windows sales. Given the durability of many of today's computers, those who has a decent running Windows 7 one can probably run it for years, if taken care of.

Regular releases of Windows/Office has been the bread & butter for MS for many years. They got there because they listened to their customers & delivered what was in demand, not by spoon feeding whatever they felt we needed (Steve Jobs style) & as blind sheep we followed, wallet & all.

MS listened to us when we stated that Windows ME & Vista sucked & delivered better products. It's time for them to again, & time for MS to deliver it's hugest userbase a new SP. Reinstalling Windows 7 is worse now (more time consuming) than XP, due to the massive number of updates that could be rolled into a SP for slipstreaming.

Or is this a plot to shove Windows 8 & Blue down it's user's throats? If so, it may backfire. Very few corporations survive in this manner.

Cat

 

Any ideas folks if this Blue thing is a free update to Win 8 like a service pack or paid like a new version ?

 

Free update.

 

If past traditions are any indication, (like Win 7 SP-1), it will be free.

 

Well said, everyone! And educational, as well.

Thanks,
-a.

 

What program are you talking about in particular Alex? I haven't had any issues running 'legacy' programs on my Windows 8 computer. Albeit those are just games for windows XP. I was able to install 98SE/ME digital camera software on a customers new computer and get it working just fine though. All the compatibility mode options are still there as well.

I'm not saying that all legacy programs still work on Windows 8 but it certainly hasn't removed any backwards compatibility that was present in Windows 7

 

I have two in mind. One is the software which runs my Intel USB camera and the other is my Digital Persona - the fingerprint manager from Microsoft themselves. While there are others, these two were important.

-a.

 

Is this on your older computer which was upgraded to windows 8, if I remember correctly? The only thing I could think of is that maybe there isn't updated windows 8 drivers for your devices and that they are just running off generic win8 drivers, keeping the software from working correctly.

I don't know if this would make a difference but have you tried running the programs in XP SP3 compatibility mode?

 

Whatever that Secure Boot & UEFI BIOS is, that on most tech forums, many users are stating that they cannot dual boot Windows 7 nor Linux on. Yes, there's workarounds, but the OEM's & MS doesn't provide the links to them.

I don't have one of these MB's & don't intend on buying on for my build this fall. There are still many MB's available w/o this feature. I realize that it's a security feature, however to many it's a nuisance that's unwanted.

Cat

 

Windows 8.1 changes. This is the link.