Friday
Aug242012
Why I’m uninstalling Windows 8
Friday, August 24, 2012 at 2:30AM I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Windows 8 is the worst computing experience I’ve ever had. As a desktop operating system, it’s annoying, frustrating, irritating, and baffling to use. I’ve tried on many occasions to explain exactly why it’s so awful to use day-to-day, and most of the time, smoke starts pouring out of my ears. I thought it would be better to get down exactly what the issues are and why you should avoid it. More here.
Ouch.
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Reader Comments (8)
Pretty much reflects my feelings and I why I uninstalled it from both my VM under Parallels and my real PC. Worst thing Microsoft has ever inflicted on us.
What a glowing evaluation of Microsoft's new flagship. It's exactly as I expected to be. I'll be sure to avoid it as much as I expected to.
Actually, my wife's new desktop computer would be as Windows 8 ready as a computer could be, but I think that Win 7 is as good as windows is going to get, at least until they get their act together.
As Windows 8 is "designed" for tablets, I can only assume that it has arrived to early. There really is no suitable hardware platform available for it yet, unless there are some really good Tablet PCs out there in the retail sector.
He goes on about the apps a lot. I don't use the built-in apps so I'm not bothered if they're crap.
The actual OS issues do sound pretty bad though. They've optimised for tablets, which is currently 0.01% of their market. Ok they want to make it a far bigger chunk, but runining the desktop experience is sheer idiocy.
I know if won't happen, but if OSX was made available for non-Apple PCs they could really hurt MS.
It's a little worrying. I was planning to update upon launch, but now I'm wondering if it's a good idea. I'm not unhappy with Windows 7, but I am looking forward to Windows getting an App Store. I could even be tempted into development, seeing as the Visual C# and Visual Basic are both super-cool and easy as pie. Can there really be no search facility on e-mail? Are there really Metro-only apps?
I think there is an interesting debate to be had here.
Microsoft is going with one size fits all - one experience across desktop, tablet and mobile. That will probably work well on tablet and mobile, but there are notes of dissent on the desktop.
Apple has, so far, differentiated OSX and iOS and seems to be committed to doing that. Once again, Apple and MS present very different philosophies.
At least Microsoft is trying to innovate. iOS6 looks retragrade to me and the lastest OSX release, which I paid good money for, seems exactly the same as the last one. That's the third release in a row that I can see no difference with!!
Jon Honeyball, erstwhile all things Windows guru at PC Pro, who even thought Vista wasn't that bad (well he didn't quite say that) has this to say about Windows 8
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/realworld/376567/honeyball-on-windows-8-its-a-car-crash
Maybe this is Microsoft's idea of a clever Marketing strategy for Windows 7. You create a new UI Shell on top of Windows 7, have all the PC manufacturers buy and install as OEM editions, and then the general public will be aghast as to how bad the UI is have to go and buy Windows 7 for their newly acquired PC.
So Microsoft gets 2 OS sales for every new PC shipped. Sounds like a winner for MS.
... Or maybe all the Win 8 UI developers are all secret Linux supporters, and this is a sabotage attempt to bring down Windows and bolster Linux support.
@Peter Actually I've heard that OSX is starting to converge with iOS, in small ways for now but I think Apple's going the same way as MS, just more slowly.
It makes sense to converge in some areas, but blindly going 100% is daft.
@Bug, I remember reading about that too. And I'll bet that Apple may get it right. Do the whole usability testing thing and all that.