Windows 8, Tablets Blamed For Record Drop In PC Sales

[Zipa]

Seeing as Windows 8 is hardly a good choice for desktop computers, and people are making downloads like Start8 to work around the Windows 8 OS to keep it like 7, I think that shows a massive problem here. Windows 8 is meant for tablets, it's not very good for PCs, so I can understand the decline

I suspect though that the poor state of the economy has at least some impact as people who are struggling to make ends meet are not going to go out and buy a new PC, they are going to make do.

And yeah having to download start8 to make it useable to the average user is a bad sign, Stardock who made it said in their company survey that its been downloaded millions of times now. That and the CEO slated Win 8 and they are a Windows approved software developer.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

As long as it's made official that windows 8 is steamy disfunctionate sludge that doesn't even qualify as garbage I'm happy. I tried to give it a chance and it is just awful, both interface and functionality wise.

 

[songnar]

Yeah, I really haven't had any problems with Win8 and I've been playing with it since the first beta release.

Trouble is, most folks see change and freak out. They'll join us in the future, though, compliantly or kicking and screaming.

 

[SpAc3man]

Take it from a Win8 user who is all too happy to still have a Win7 desktop PC around: It doesn't even run Skype (which is OWNED AND PUBLISHED by Microsoft now) properly. Several games do not fare much better.

Not sure why you would think that. I was using Skype on Windows 8 about a month before the Win 8 public release.

 

[orangeapples]

It isn't Windows 8's fault. The problem is that XP and 7 both work fine for most people. We are reaching a saturation point where most people have computers and don't need to upgrade. Heck, most people don't even know the difference between mac's snow leopard and lion OSs. I didn't even know they were on Mountain Lion until I was talking to a mac user about it a few weeks ago.

 

[ResonanceSD]

As long as it's made official that windows 8 is steamy disfunctionate sludge that doesn't even qualify as garbage I'm happy. I tried to give it a chance and it is just awful, both interface and functionality wise.

Not sure what the problem with Win8 is, what precisely about the interface bugged you? The only significant change is that the desktop doesn't have a start button.

Unless you saw it for 1 second in tiles mode, couldn't work out how to exit tiles mode, and freaked out, which is how your post reads.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

As long as it's made official that windows 8 is steamy disfunctionate sludge that doesn't even qualify as garbage I'm happy. I tried to give it a chance and it is just awful, both interface and functionality wise.

Not sure what the problem with Win8 is, what precisely about the interface bugged you? The only significant change is that the desktop doesn't have a start button.

Unless you saw it for 1 second in tiles mode, couldn't work out how to exit tiles mode, and freaked out, which is how your post reads.

No, I gave it a good month and a half. Which honestly is a month and a week longer than I should have given it.

The thing is a mess. It restarts at the slightest hint of something being amiss, which is frequently because it doesn't handle most programs well and arbitrarily decides to move around and reorganize .dll files so that it can't locate them. It got to the point where my computer would restart at least twice (generally 3-4 times) before it decided to work for more than 2 minutes. I had to reinstall a number of programs multiple times because Win8 decided it didn't like them one day and decided to stop opening them. Also if I had a nickel for every time I accidentally opened that side options menu because it takes priority over every other window if you put your mouse on the right side of the screen. You know like, where the scroll on an internet browser always is.

Also there were a number of basic features that despite trying my damndest I never was able to locate, implying that either they are no longer present or the OS is terrible at being accessibly navigated, which is the supposed purpose of the simplified interface. I actually had to get on my other computer and Google how to close the aforementioned "accidentally clicked the right side of the screen" options menu without calling in the direct intervention of ctrl alt delete. IIRC ctrl alt delete wasn't even able to close it but it's been a while so I don't remember.

And this is technically subjective I guess, but I think it's pretty safe to say that solid color squares with white text is not going to be winning any "elegance in presentation" awards.

Reformatted my laptop to windows 7 and have had no problems whatsoever in the 2 months since. When a downgrade is an upgrade you've done something wrong.

 

[ResonanceSD]

As long as it's made official that windows 8 is steamy disfunctionate sludge that doesn't even qualify as garbage I'm happy. I tried to give it a chance and it is just awful, both interface and functionality wise.

Not sure what the problem with Win8 is, what precisely about the interface bugged you? The only significant change is that the desktop doesn't have a start button.

Unless you saw it for 1 second in tiles mode, couldn't work out how to exit tiles mode, and freaked out, which is how your post reads.

Also there were a number of basic features that despite trying my damndest I never was able to locate, implying that either they are no longer present or the OS is terrible at being accessibly navigated, which is the supposed purpose of the simplified interface. I actually had to get on my other computer and Google how to close the aforementioned "accidentally clicked the right side of the screen" options menu without calling in the direct intervention of ctrl alt delete. IIRC ctrl alt delete wasn't even able to close it but it's been a while so I don't remember.

Press escape. Can't believe you didn't try that before going to google.


As for your other problems, I haven't encountered a single one.

Scrollbar? Doesn't your mouse have a scrollwheel?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

For the Business users it is as I said earlier, a true abomination. Business environments do not care about "optimization", at least not the same way that you do. For them optimization is reflected in ease of navigation or use, minimizing training and support costs, and overall costs of ownership. Right now the costs of ownership of Win 8 for a business are truly obscene. With no perceivable production benefit to actually switching to the new OS. Small businesses have been particularly burned by MS's business practice decisions with Win 8. Often in a business of less than 20 employees a down or failed computer is something that must be dealt with very quickly. In the past they could easily simply dispatch someone down to the local Office Supply Store or Best Buy to grab an off the shelf PC to meat their needs. With Win 8 they cannot do this. The retailers are restricted to Win 8 only, no options. So the small business has to endure days of downtime waiting on a custom built/business class system from Dell or HP, etc. It's had a few of my small clients switching to Mac's.

This is why the university I work at with upwards of a thousand desktops alone didn't bother testing Windows 8 as a possible upgrade from 7.

 

[spartandude]

in all honesty i dont think theres any reason to upgrade from windows 7 to 8. 7 has all the stability and functionality of xp but with better hardwar optimization. in fact thats the only reason i upgraded to 7 last week (hello 16 gb of ram). and while i dont the know how good 8 is with hardware i do know it really isnt designed for desktops. is good for tablets however

 

[Malisteen]

Ended up with Win8 when I received a computer as an unexpected graduation gift from my family. Win8 is bad, but not so bad that I've felt compelled to replace it yet, and nowhere near bad enough to sour such an amazingly generous gift. The machine has run everything I've asked of it quite well, and after installing one of those third party start button/startmenu skippers most days I can pretend I'm not running Win8 at all.

Had I been buying a computer for myself I would have avoided it, likely enlisting the aid of friends in purchasing & assembling individual components, though, and that's certainly the course I'd recommend to anyone with the skills or friends necessary to do so. Sadly enough, the last time I got a new computer, before building one was an option for me, was right after Vista was released, so I've skipped from one bad version of windows straight to another, missing the decent one in between. Derp.

 

[RevRaptor]

Win 8 looks crap and I went into a store to look at some options out of simple curiosity and none of the reps could tell me what was running win 8 or win RT. Seeing as no win 8 programs will run in RT How can I be expected to buy a product when the guys selling it to me can't even tell whats what.

Looks like I'll be sticking with Android it ain't perfect but at least I know it works

 

[likalaruku]

Last time I went to a movie, 90% of the pre movie adds were for the Windows Tablet.

They seemed so desperate.

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

There is absolutely no reason to have Win8 on a desktop PC.

It's cheaper and runs slightly faster. There is also a good chance Microsoft will force obsolescence for win7 gamers like they did with XP (DX10+ doesn't work on xp, I only upgraded to 7 because just cause 2 refused to run at all), will have to wait and see what they do with DX12 though but you already can't get 11.1 on win7.

 

[Antari]

With Bill Gates pretty much in full retirement. Is it really shocking to see whoever is at the helm of Microsoft driving it into the ground?

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Scrollbar? Doesn't your mouse have a scrollwheel?

Nope. Laptop. Touchpad.

 

[lacktheknack]

Was finally forced to use Windows 8 at school, actually. It's really not so bad, if you don't mind using the search function constantly.

But still, it's unintuitive enough that I can see it causing a drop in PC sales.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Was finally forced to use Windows 8 at school, actually. It's really not so bad, if you don't mind using the search function constantly.

But still, it's unintuitive enough that I can see it causing a drop in PC sales.

Alt tab from tiles takes you to the desktop. From there you can use file explorer.

 

[lacktheknack]

Was finally forced to use Windows 8 at school, actually. It's really not so bad, if you don't mind using the search function constantly.

But still, it's unintuitive enough that I can see it causing a drop in PC sales.

Alt tab from tiles takes you to the desktop. From there you can use file explorer.

So does clicking "Desktop".

That's not the issue, the issue is that it's too different from Windows 7 and it causes a brief period of intimidation.

And when you're trying to a new version of something, intimidating your audience isn't a good idea, even for a minute.

 

[Matthi205]

For someone who only needs a computer to check their email and browse the internet, maybe facebook or do some online shopping, then there's absolutely no reason to have a bulky desktop PC compared to the more more portable tablets now available. The majority of people I know are like that.

If someone is shopping for a desktop computer that probably means they need it for something more demanding, whether that be work or editing or indeed gaming. Windows 8 however? Not particularly good at any of that. Oh it'll work just fine once you've got it figured out, but I daresay the majority don't want to have to bother figuring it out. Easier to just stick with an older computer and older operating system, especially as there haven't been any real leaps in technology lately.

Hell, where I work still runs windows XP on all its computers.

There really is a big difference between our countries... Tablets are nearly never used around here, except if somebody needs mobility (and most people still prefer to buy old business laptops from the pre-2008 era... single-core, that is) or if they have too much money (which almost never happens).

When you're talking about WinXP... a good part of the school computers around here are from before 2000 (and thus run Win98SE). And most people I know don't even want to know about using anything but WinXP/Win98SE (whichever they happen to be using at this moment) on computers that are at least 8 years old. How many of them are OEM? 20-30%. How many of those are IBM? ~85%.
So it's actually quite easy to put together why people don't like Win8: they don't want to adjust to a new GUI. Linux distros don't succeed here for that very same reason.

Games compatibility isn't much of an issue here, though: if it can run WoW/LoL/Bejeweled/CS1.6/CS-S everything is OK. For this country I have a very powerful PC (and considering I only have an i3-3220/HD6670/8GB that means something, since my grandfather in Germany has the same configuration... and there it's barely average).

With Bill Gates pretty much in full retirement. Is it really shocking to see whoever is at the helm of Microsoft driving it into the ground?

You know that that would actually be a good thing, right?

Seeing as Windows 8 is hardly a good choice for desktop computers, and people are making downloads like Start8 to work around the Windows 8 OS to keep it like 7, I think that shows a massive problem here. Windows 8 is meant for tablets, it's not very good for PCs, so I can understand the decline

There's the problem: it doesn't work well on tablets either. Yeah, the Metro GUI works fine, but once you need to use the desktop, it's a pain.