Windows 9 will be an operating system you can love (will be aimed at desktops, not tablets)

CoDRmputer World ^ | 8/7/2014 | Preston Gralla

[Signalman]

Windows 9 is going to strip out even more of Windows 8 than we thought: It will kill the Charms Bar. Considering that it will also add back the Start menu, and allow Metro apps to run as windows apps on the desktop, when it's done it may be an operating system you can love.

WinBeta reports that in Windows 9, currently code-named Threshold, the Charms Bar is going to be killed, as least on traditional PCs. That's good news. Although Charms works fine on tablets, on traditional PCs it's always been confusing and awkward to use. It's one more sign that Microsoft will be aiming Windows 9 more at desktops and laptops rather than at tablets.

Combine this with the ability to run Metro apps in their own windows on the desktop, have Metro apps include title bars and controls like traditional desktop apps, and boot directly into the desktop, and you have a version of Windows that looks and works more like Windows 7 than Windows 8.

The other news about Windows 9, according to Neowin, is that Windows 9 will have virtual desktops, which are available on Mac OS X and Ubuntu, as well as via some Windows third-party software. With virtual desktops, you create desktop different environments and can switch among them. So, for example, you might create one desktop for when you're working remotely with a work VPN, your company's enterprise apps, and so on; another for gaming; and others as well, and then switch instantly among them.

Virtual desktops aren't nearly as important as the other changes, which are all pointed at making Windows 9 an operating system designed for traditional PCs rather than tablets.

[RJS1950]

The business world hasn’t accepted it largely because touch technology is not mainstream as of yet. For touch technology systems it is great.

[adorno]

Wrong on every count ( or most counts?)

The desktop/laptop market is far from dead, and in fact, it's met with a recent uptick, to the point where the predictions are calling for way more than 300 million PCs to be sold in the next year.

Smartphones are meeting up with a wall, and it's called "saturation", in a market where the user has "matured" his/her needs, and found that, there really is no reason to keep purchasing a new smartphone every year or two. Tablets are in a funk, and they could go the way of the dinosaur in another couple of years, just like the netbook of the recent past.

With XP having lost support, there are expectations that a lot more PCs/desktops will be sold this year than in the recent past years. In fact, every time I go into a Best Buy or Tiger Direct, the traffic of purchasers is a lot bigger there for PCs than in the smartphones and tablets areas. The novelty for tablets may be meeting with an end, and that just means that, more people are opting for PCs. My son just purchased a Toshiba laptop with Win 8.1, and he never even considered a tablet or a Mac.

Windows machines sales may have slowed down in recent years,but again, that's attributable to people keeping their machines which are perfectly good for another few years,and could also be attributed to the slowdown in the economy.

Windows 8 has already sold close to 300 million licenses, which is not that drastically different from where Windows 7 was at the same period of time after it initial release.

[adorno]

The underpinnings of the OS worked fine, the interface was just intolerable....

It was the same for me, but then, I didn't have any expectations of the OS being a fully supportable and workable system.

[roamer_1]

Windows:

DOS6.22: AWESOME.

3.0: crap

3.1 sorta fair

3.11WFWG: good, but not anywhere near OS/2 WARP.

95: crap.

95 950B: sorta good, maybe...

98: better than 95, but really just 950B sommore... Ooh, look! a value pack!

98SE: better than 98, DOS 7.10 - AWESOME w/ LFN and DMA and FAT32

ME: crap. So utterly disappointing... DOS purposefully broken.

2000: good, but crap from virii, no drivers, no boot disk, no way to access NTFS if the system is dead w/o a test bench.

2000 SP3+: good, still no boot disk

XP: totally owned by virii, still no boot disk - Is a boot disk so hard? You know, with a boot disk and a cmdline anti-virus, I could have a leg up on all these bugs I get every_friggin_day...

XP SP2+: Good. REALLY good. Still no boot disk. It’s been like, a decade now... a boot disk would be nice one of these days...

Vista: good, but fat and meh. Still no boot disk. My scanner is a doorstop. So is my printer.

Win 7: REALLY good... holy crap! look! it’s got a boot disk! Not a very good boot disk though - One would think a file manager might be a good feature for a boot disk... Really? WTF good is a boot disk without a friggin file manager so I can get my crap off the stupid system? Oh, this is just disgusting... you did this on purpose, just to piss me off. What a crappy boot disk.

Win 8: crap. YOU SUCK.

Win 8.1 crap w/ sprinkles and a dusting of powdered sugar. I hate you.

Win 9: ?

[Enlightened1]

Oh okay and the desktop market is not saturated???

You are also assuming that everyone leaving their old Windows XP Desktops will not upgrade to a Laptop or Tablet.

You mentioned your son purchasing a desktop. I bet if you go to his school that most of his fellow students all have laptops, smart phones and tablets.

I don’t know who gave you that information about Desktops sales. Sorry but it made me laugh. Here is a highly respected firm that researches sales of PCs, Laptops, Tablets and Smart Phones.

Just scroll down to the graphs.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24314413

[Enlightened1]

Here is a recent article from Forbes too. Predicting the next 3 years.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2013/09/12/idc-87-of-connected-devices-by-2017-will-be-tablets-and-smartphones/

[Enlightened1]

One more for you.

“CHART OF THE DAY: The Number Of Smartphones In Use Is About To Pass The Number Of PCs”

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-number-of-smartphones-tablets-and-pcs-2013-12

[867V309]

When it comes to the complaints about the metro interface, those complainers aren’t smart enough to know that, Windows 8 can also work with the desktop interface, just like Windows 7.

With a little effort, W8 can be much better than W7. It is inherently faster. The Start screen is a feature, not a bug. Just uninstall the idiotic default "apps" and turn it into a customized start menu:



Other things like "god mode", Windows key + x, and applications folder make it powerful and accessible.

[Enlightened1]

“Tablets to outsell PCs for the first time this year
Sales of tablets such as Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy are expected to outsell desktop computers for the first time this year.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9958851/Tablets-to-outsell-PCs-for-the-first-time-this-year.html

[dfwgator]

Laptops are not going away anytime soon.

[roamer_1]

Don't dis DOS!

I LOVED DOS! The worst thing MS ever did was make the OS dependent upon the windowing system. Can you imagine NTCMD and all it can do if you could boot directly to it?

[Enlightened1]

I agree... See post #71

[dfwgator]

I have a laptop and a tablet, but I rarely use the tablet.....I need a good keyboard, and tablets just don’t cut it.

[Enlightened1]

I have both a Laptop and a Tablet. I use both equally.

I know what you mean about the keyboard. It took me some time to get use to it, but I’m comfortable with it now.

[I want the USA back]

Gee. Maybe they will get it right this time.

[CarmichaelPatriot]

Windows:

95: good

98: good

ME: crap

XP: good

Vista: crap

Win 7: good

Win 8: crap

Win 9: ?

I see a pattern developing here.

Mac OS X

10.0 Cheetah: Good

10.1 Puma: Pretty Good

10.2 Jaguar: Good

10.3 Panther: Good

10.4 Tiger: Good

10.5 Leopard: Good

10.6 Snow Leopard: Good

10.7 Lion: Good

10.8 Mountain Lion: Good

10.9 Mavericks: Very Good

10.10 Yosemite: Outstanding

The pattern here developed long ago...

[markomalley]

The only problem I had with configuring Mint was with getting Bluetooth to work properly (I have a set of Bluetooth headphones that I use so as to not subject family to the sounds of Talk Radio constantly).

There are a bunch of neat toys to install (by the way):

gpodder — allows me to automatically download and manage Levin podcasts (as well as others).

radiotray — nice and simple way to listen to Internet radio. Lightweight and simple.

copyq — a FANTASTIC clipboard manager that allows for tabbed storage of clips (so you can keep your ping list readily available, for example), as well as editing clips.

There are others, but those are the ones I use the most.

[SES1066]

I presume that all of this can be yours for a low, low price! Right?

/s

[Fightin Whitey]

Thank you very much.

That was more answer than I expected, and probably more time than I should have taken from you.

Much appreciated, best Fregards to you.

[Uri’el-2012]

I remember CE ME NT