Windows 9

I just assumed most office jobs don't use it because it wouldn't be very cost effective but meh

It depends on the specific company you work for. This one medical billing company i worked for had only a handful of Windows computers (cause all the other computers were just one small white monitor with a black screen and orange text like the program was built into the computer). and only the supervisors and one outside the hallway were windows XP. The scanning/sorting section and the one in the server room were using Windows 98. They were networked together cause the scanners would save them all the files from their computer to the one in the server after sorting them on their computers... they had an external hard-drive hooked up to the computer in the server room, which is what they called their version of an "electronic filing system". So that was their excuse for not upgrading to Vista/7

The one I'm in now uses VMWare for EVERYTHING to "prevent hackers from stealing vital information on the actual hard-drive of every office computer". It's wierd though cause its an XP machine within an XP machine. We have like one or two newer computers using Windows 7, but it doesn't even count, cause since we're using VMWare with Windows XP, it all depends on the main brain computer down in Atlanta Georgia whether or not we get fast or slow performance... and majority of the time its the latter. Then again, when IT only gives each VMWare user 17GB of "virtual" hard drive space and continue to install new crap on everyone's VMWare to the point where we're down to only 1GB of memory that all the programs we open up eat it like it's going out of style, it's not the least bit surprising.

Then there's my mom's job... she's a real estate broker, but her boss wants to upgrade all the computers to Windows 8 when their all using XP. Everyone is pissed about the decision cause they don't like the way it looks nor do they care to learn how to work it. Keep in mind the people at my mom's job, including my mom, are the kind of computer users that they IMMEDIATELY ask for help if something doesn't work right the first time they click it, or if a window pops up they have never seen before but don't care to read it (in other words, ALMOST EVERY NEW COMPUTER USER MICROSOFT IS TRYING TO AIM THEIR PRODUCTS TO!)

You hate Microsoft for sure don't you? :D

OK, I'll try to reflect to some of your points about this without the theatrical elements (damn, hell, ooooo, boom) and extremities (complete, entire, everyone, etc.).

When they were making Vista & 7, their intent was to make it "easier for people new to computers to control it. Their tv commercials were about this".

You rarely ever see a software release where it is not advertised as "easier to use then the previous one". It does not actually reflect the relevant changes in a software.

Anyway I don't think that Vista or Win7 is harder to use than WinXP. My mother has no affinity for IT, nor the will to learn it, still when she bought a laptop with Vista preinstalled she was able to use it. There was nothing she was able to do in XP that she was unable to do in Vista. (But bringing anyone's mother into an argument is cheating, so disregard this point).

There's no reason why Windows Vista & 7 needed to segregate any program XP and older just because the guts are entirely diferent.

This point I fail to grasp. You are complaining about backwards compatibility. And bring up points like incompatible cleaning tools. Why would you use a 3rd party cleaning tool designed for XP on Vista or 7? These tools fiddle with the internals of the operating system. It was well communicated that a lot of things have changed internally, so it stands to reason that you would need to use different tools too.

And complaining about bad backwards compatibility on windows? Have you tried to compare it to other operating systems? I'm pretty much able to install and play games released in 2000 on Windows 8. I sometimes have to enable "compatibility mode" or similar, but I'm able to find on google how to do it.

Most of the complaints I remember were about lesser performance and that not all devices had drivers. I didn't like this, I remember I needed to use my integrated soundcard for months as my other one had no driver yet. Stereo is a bad alternative to 7.1

The performance issue was mitigated in W7, and most device manufacturers managed to write new drivers in the following year.

On the other hand it was much-much harder for a badly written drivers to cause BSOD.

NO new user in their right mind can say they enjoy Windows asking them 82746824682657823689 times "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO RUN THIS PROGRAM?"

You are referring to the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control#Criticism"]User Account Control[/url]. It doesn't ask you if you want to start a program, but if you want to allow a program to gain administrator privileges. It's not normal for a program to ask for it unless you are installing something, or make system altering operations. And in either way it is important for the user to consent. Nowadays most programs manage to work without requiring unnecessary admin privileges (partially because they want to avoid the UAC prompts), so you rarely ever see an UAC prompt apart from installing software, and it turned out to be a huge step in preventing malware to silently alter your system. Is it really that annoying? My "friends-and-relations" never seem to complain about it, and I very rarely see UAC disabled anywhere.

I'm usually pretty sceptical about every decision microsoft makes, but these points... I just don't see them to be true.

You hate Microsoft for sure don't you? :D

More dissappointed than hate. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that XP is perfect (after all, it got rid of MSDOS, which is why we have DOSBOX and why OLD games like SonicCD PC cant function all too well on it), but compared to the newer versions, it's defenitely the better choice

(But bringing anyone's mother into an argument is cheating, so disregard this point)

Is it? Let's face it, its the year 2014, and theres STILL people out there that don't know how to use a computer... and by "use" i mean "basic computer 101" stuff. I can't tell you how frustrating it can be being around people that don't even know what the icons on their desktop even do... or hell, what the start menu even does. And majority of the time it seems to be the older croud (late 30s/early 40s and older) that can't grasp the concepts. Now with that in mind, imagine those same people who have very tiny to no computer experience sitting down in front of a computer with windows 8... god forbid they have a panic attack from getting lost on all the floating icons that aren't even part ofd the desktop itself, but to someone like you and I, this is trivial at best (actually its more annoying to me than trivial), I'm really not too worried about the younger generation considering they can basically operate an ipad/nook at the age of 2.

Why would you use a 3rd party cleaning tool designed for XP on Vista or 7?

How quick of you to assume that I was ;)

The cleaning program in question I was using at the time was CCleaner, which i happen to like alot cause it did a really good job on my old computer when i had XP, and before i installed it on my new computer, I did in fact make sure it was Windows 7 ready, which it said so on their website. After installation i had used all it's features on more than one occasion (i'm the type of computer user that makes it a habit to clean the junk once a week and defrag every 3 weeks /1 month). It just so happened that this one time i used it and it took out one of the windows services. You could argue that this is a bug in the program, but if it is, then it's a very self-aware bug, because i tested this on other computers/laptops and to this day, their still running fine with no issues.

This, and other issues like how i couldn't run BMSE on Windows 7 unless i downloaded MISSING x86 DRIVERS (drivers that never came with Windows 7 by the way, and even after i got them, it was hit and miss) is why i downgraded my windows 7 back to XP, and bought a better video card that was XP compatable to compensate for the fact that my built-in video card was "Vista/7 only"

And complaining about bad backwards compatibility on windows? Have you tried to compare it to other operating systems? I'm pretty much able to install and play games released in 2000 on Windows 8. I sometimes have to enable "compatibility mode" or similar, but I'm able to find on google how to do it.

Thats just my problem... people SHOULDNT HAVE TO even think about using compatability mode. When people hear "upgraded version of windows", they think something that can do the job better... not something that needs a friggen handicap. I can only recall ONE time i had to use "compatability mode" on Windows XP, and that was just to make a game that was made around the Windows 98/2000 era look a little better and run a little smoother. otherwise without it, XP did just fine on it's own. With Vista, and 7, its almost a requirement to use compatability mode, because the OS is literally telling you "NOPE, don't feel like running this, unless you treat me special, then I'll think about it".

Nowadays most programs manage to work without requiring unnecessary admin privileges (partially because they want to avoid the UAC prompts), so you rarely ever see an UAC prompt apart from installing software, and it turned out to be a huge step in preventing malware to silently alter your system

And with all the windows prompting, and with all the professional anti-virus programs in the world, there are still silent threats today that make it past them... threats that act like just regular programs. I'll give a perfect example (and yes, I'll use a mother again cause its a perfect senario that can happen to anyone thats not-so computer savy). My mom happens to use her Windows 7 Hewler Paket laptop not only for work, but to also play games and browse the web. One day she notices that her homepgae is just an "about;blank" page. After more than one occasion from me to set up her homepage permanently, it still shows an "about;blank" page. Not only that, but whenever she would go on facebook, her laptop would just reset itself. My dad decided to get a hold of Microsoft's IT department so they could remote desktop her laptop to diagnose the issue, install their "professional" anti-virus program, and run it to clean whatever infections she had (and yes, he had to pay out the ass for it). Still wouldn't work. So one night, i take the laptop and do my own diagnosis. After looking through all her installed programs and using google to get more info, it turns out she had a friggen Trojan that was leeching onto her toolbar on Internet Explorer that came from a program that she never uses, but must have "accidentally downloaded" & installed. I can almost guarentee you that she's probably not the first victem of this either.

in al honesty, the way i see it, is that you and i just have different oppinions about Microsoft and their products in general. I'm trying to put things in a wider perspective, but you're looking at me like I'm complaining about minor tid-bits, so let's just agree to disagree

...Let's face it, its the year 2014, and theres STILL people out there that don't know how to use a computer... and by "use" i mean "basic computer 101" stuff. I can't tell you how frustrating it can be being around people that don't even know what the icons on their desktop even do... or hell, what the start menu even does. And majority of the time it seems to be the older croud (late 30s/early 40s and older) that can't grasp the concepts. Now with that in mind, imagine those same people who have very tiny to no computer experience sitting down in front of a computer with windows 8... god forbid they have a panic attack from getting lost on all the floating icons that aren't even part ofd the desktop itself, but to someone like you and I, this is trivial at best (actually its more annoying to me than trivial), I'm really not too worried about the younger generation considering they can basically operate an ipad/nook at the age of 2...

And now you understand the hardest part of the job I'm in...fixing computers and other devices for consumers and businesses.

Do you think the normal person unlike the rest of the tech-heads that grace sites such as this have a clue how to use Windows 8? It was a major changeup for the Start Menu after having it for 18 years and change, for computers, is very bad unless you have a really good reason to do so. Windows 95, in that regard, was a good reason because it made sense. Having a tablet OS merged into a desktop OS was not a good idea. No matter how good an OS under the hood Windows 8 is, on the whole it just does not appeal to the consumer and desktop and laptop sales have suffered over it for anything MS-based.

More people have actually told me in the past year that they jumped to Mac or kept their old system (or some other thing) than when Vista first came out. And that is bad.

I don't have any problem using Windows 8 or manipulating it for myself and I'm sure everyone who replies to this thread is probably in the same boat but when you're face to face with the common person all the time it's not hard to see why few people like Microsoft for what they're doing these days.

Also, Ballmer is a fucking moron but that's another story. He's gone now.

...Windows 9...

...This should be interesting... Wonder how they are going to screw it up THIS time?

...Also, does Microsoft seriously need this many OS versions/updates/expansions/whatever/etc...? Wasn't XP/7 good enough? Leave it be as is and just continue to update the good ones...

~ SpoOkyMagician

(But bringing anyone's mother into an argument is cheating, so disregard this point)
Is it?
Sorry it was just a bad reference to a saying, where mothers should not be brought into arguments. I realize now, that you live in an entirely different place/culture and that there is no saying like that there, possibly. It was just a bad attempt at joking. Your mother is a close relative who have no affinity for computers but have to use them, just like mine. I understood your point, and I reflected to it accordingly (except for the joke).

In al honesty, the way i see it, is that you and i just have different oppinions about Microsoft and their products in general. I'm trying to put things in a wider perspective, but you're looking at me like I'm complaining about minor tid-bits, so let's just agree to disagree
OK. I don't really feel that obliged to protect microsoft. There is a lot of things I don't like about them, or disagree with them on (that is also true for nearly every other large IT companies).

I respect your dissatisfaction you are welcome to use any operating system you like and I won't judge you (except for Hanna Montana Linux).

I was just surprised by the fact that you didn't like Windows 7 because of the "services" thing, as XP also had "services", and most UNIX based OS-es also have "services" that work very similarly. That I could not make sense of, so I was compelled to ask.

October.

Welp. Faster than I expected.

There seems to be a pattern where every other release of Windows is okay at best so let's hope Windows 9 follows this trend.