Do you Think Windows 8 is a Failure?

[Michael Goff]

I like how there's two options for yes and one for no. :\

 

[Beeplance]

Would rather stay with Windows 7 until it's very last days. If the 2001-introduced Windows XP remained usable and viable till this very day, I would go as far as to say Windows 7 will stay relevant until at least 2020.

Speaking of that, I genuinely wonder how many folks out there still utilize XP and older software..

 

[three]

I personally like it. I used to hate it before I was able to really use it with a touchscreen enabled computer. It's made for touch. It's a ton better with touch.

 

[MarvelouzV]

Well, to my mind, Windows 8 fails even the basic tests of usability; I cannot turn the damned thing off (with ease)......in some ways, it is like returning to the dark old days of having to do everything the longest, most tedious way imaginable. Actually, it is an over-engineered piece of........technology. An absolute nightmare, in fact...

+ 10000000000000000000

right on the money with that statement.

Everything you do now is tedious and annoying.

My own desktop computer will stay on Windows 7 for I plan to never ever upgrade unless they completely and utterly destroy Windows 8 and start from scratch. Maybe then, I will consider anything Windows again.

Windows 8 is a fail/failure/a piece of *****/trash/a joke -- whatever you want to call it.

 

[MyMac1976]

Windows 8 is fine, it's going to take another year of whining but people will adapt.

 

[dec.]

Can't say. As long as win 7 works as launch pad for games, there's no need for me to update my toy pc.

 

[firedept]

Not the biggest fan, but it is not a failure. I just prefer 7 over it and will stick with that. I do not have a touch screen and that is probably why I prefer 7. Only use windows once or twice a weeks for very brief periods anyways.

 

[Plutonius]

It's neither a success or a failure (it has some good points and some bad points).

I like how there's two options for yes and one for no. :\

and none for neither.

 

[wiloliau]

It is a failure

It was a stunt from microsoft trying to get popularity .

 

[andrewlgm]

It's not a failure. It's a change. I've worked as a tech for the past 10 years, and when you're dealing with people who don't know what a "restart" is, you're asking for trouble. I've worked with every type of person out there (the doctors, secretaries, bankers who type yahoo.com into the address bar, then in the search bar type in google, and once in google, they search for CNN... seriously), my conclusion after all this experience is that most people are technologically deficient. I've gone into an office for a printer installation just to find a Macbook Pro that hasn't seen a restart in 6 months, and the client is cursing his macbook for being so slow and always hanging.

Having said that, for the technologically inefficient, windows 8 is a failure. A huge failure. But for the technologically aware, windows 8 is simply a change. If you have a touchscreen and become proficient at using it, the system is fantastic.

I wouldn't go as far as comparing it to vista. Vista was buggy, laggy, inefficient. Windows 8 is different. It's not even close to how bad vista was and is.

 

[wordoflife]

I'm still trying to figure out if I am inept with Windows 8 because it sucks or because I switched to Mac.

In all seriousness, I do think the way that Windows 8 was released was a failure. Not having the option to use the computer like a Windows 7 PC (the start menu) was not a good idea in my opinion. So I hear in 8.1, the start menu is back? I will have to check it out.

But from my experience, I'm having a harder time using Windows 8 than using any other version of Windows. A lot of the things take longer for me to do and cause frustration.

 

[r3m1]

I believe it is a fine OS, like any major change, people will resist and try to hold on to their old ways.

The only reason why I use Windows is for Microsoft Office 2010/2013, as an advanced user there is nothing on any platform that beats it in terms of functionality --- no, Apple's sorry excuse for an office suite doesnt come close.

 

[Renzatic]

In all seriousness, I do think the way that Windows 8 was released was a failure. Not having the option to use the computer like a Windows 7 PC (the start menu) was not a good idea in my opinion. So I hear in 8.1, the start menu is back? I will have to check it out.

The Start button is back, but it still takes you to the new Win8 Start screen. The old menu is all but gone in Windows 8, unless you use a 3rd party app.

Though I still say it's not that big of an issue. The Start screen does everything the old Start menu did, but...bigger. Barring some deeper level search features (which I hear were reenabled in 8.1), anything you could do in one can be done in the other. Since I never used the Start menu for anything other than launching the occasional program or searching for files, the differences between 7 and 8 were merely cosmetic for me.

My opinion of Windows 8 is this: MS didn't make the changes as smooth and well integrated as they should've, but it's not the absolutely unusable train wreck most people make it out to be.

 

[pollaxe]

I'm not a fan of it; I've tried and used every version since the first CP was released.

Honestly, the underlying O/S is pretty good but I still don't understand the 'one size fits all' decision for the GUI. To me, it's not a suitable desktop front end at all. I use either Classic Shell or Stardock's Start8 and Modern Mix which makes it much more tolerable on a desktop, at least for my taste.

I'm moving away from Microsoft now. I haven't liked Windows 8 and the pulling of TechNet also irritated me. I have an 8.1 Wintendo for LAN gaming and an HP N40L on Windows 8 which is also on its last legs and will probably get moved to Ubuntu or Mint or something else in the not too distant future. My Wintendo runs well and is very fast but I don't enjoy using it.

One thing I have found with Windows 8 is that the purported benefits of it being much more robust and repairable really have not been so in my experience. I've had a number of failures which I was unable to repair and which entailed a full reinstall. Like many versions of Windows before it, it's also a pain to install in a system where more than one drive is fitted.

Is it a failure? I voted yes but that was more for personal reasons. I think it's harder to quantify that in terms of global sales. It's certainly been a factor in moving me more deeply into the OS X environment and it's also a very Marmite* operating system which divides people into strongly opposing viewpoints. Having used Vista and (shudders) Windows XP 64 bit I am sure that Windows 8 is a much better O/S than either of them but I can't help the feeling that Microsoft has taken a bit of a knock with its release. We'll see whether they stick to their guns or usher in changes in the coming versions.

*Marmite for those who don't know of it is a yeast spread that is marketed by acknowledging that people fit firmly into the love/hate camps. I'm in the latter, I feel much the same way about the Brussel sprout too.

 

[deluxeshredder]

I had an experience of consulting school staff on Windows 8. After showing the way around the "dual" UI I was hearing mostly neutral opinions. No Vista/iOS 7-style outrage.

As for me, I like the speed/stability and visual style of Windows 8 more than Windows 7 (Aero looked like a bad OS X clone) and I simply use the Start screen as a Lauchpad-like app drawer.