And this is exactly why Windows 8 fails. You shouldn't have to download a program to get this feature.
well thats just to high of expectations, if that were true.. Linux systems would fail. But they dont. Any program that is free, is not the big of a feature to download. Yeah, its stupid to download something thats always been there.. but I would not call it a fail, I call it "Need for Customization".. which is exactly what Vista needed.
And compete with Apple's 20 dollars for OS X Mountain Lion. But anyway, I like Win7 more. I tried out the dev and public previews, and I think Metro is too plastic-y, they screwed up one of the most iconic logos in technology, they're trying to mash PCs and tablets together too early, and it'll confuse a lot of people who are used to the normal Windows 7 interface. I'll stay with 7, thank you. (Disclaimer: I have seperate partitions for OS X, Win7, and Ubuntu, and I use all of them.)
I'm sorry, but you do realize Microsoft is sorta pulling a Nintendo here. They're trying to innovate again, like they did with Windows 95 or 98, one of them. EDIT: Not saying it's going to be good, of course.
Windows Needs Change Although Windows 8 has a fair share of perks for the traditional desktop, the operating system's featured attraction is its new touchscreen interface. Instead of the pop-up Start menu that's been around since Windows 95, there's a full-screen Start page with a grid of big, touchable app tiles. Within this menu, you'll find the Windows Store, full of apps that seem to have tablets in mind. To take advantage of the software, Microsoft and PC makers plan to sell laptop-tablet hybrids, meant to offer the best of both worlds. If you have zero interest in tablets or touchscreens, these changes might seem upsetting. It's as if Windows, nerdy at heart, showed up to school with a hip new look, intent on abandoning its geeky friends. Yet, it has to be this way. PC sales are down, while iPad sales are surging. People are turning to the iPad when they just need to get online or play with some apps. Although PC purists insist that you can't do real work on an iPad, the body of evidence to the contrary keeps increasing. Office Suite apps abound, as do keyboard cases that make the iPad more laptop-like. You can write code and design webpages on the iPad. You can compose music and edit video, too. None of this means the PC is doomed, but, as a general-purpose, go-to computing solution, PCs face a serious threat from tablets, especially the iPad. Microsoft must respond with an OS that makes sense for tablets. Understanding Microsoft's Angle. You might argue that Microsoft should have left Windows alone while building a separate tablet OS on the side. But who would use the latter? Windows PC users would have little incentive to switch, which leaves Microsoft to figure out how to lure prospective iPad buyers. That's a tall order, and it certainly hasn't worked out for Android tablets, which aren't selling very well. Instead of going that route, Microsoft is using Windows 8 to force the transition for anyone who buys a new PC. As Technologizer's Harry McCracken pointed out a year ago, Microsoft's transition to Windows 8 is as radical a change as the company's move from DOS to Windows 3.0. Then, as now, Microsoft had to tread lightly, letting people fall back onto their old software and old ways of doing things. But, over time, the old way got phased out. Today's command prompt is but a distant relative of the DOS version, and most Windows users never go near it. Microsoft is banking on the chance that, as it redefines Windows, it can guide users through their own transitions. If you've used a PC your entire computing life, changing OSes means throwing away all the keyboard shortcuts you've learned, as well as losing all your USB accessories, the file system, and the eponymous windows. Windows 8 lets you keep all those things while it introduces something new. Looking AheadFrom here, the future of Windows could play out in a few ways: One possibility would be for Microsoft to concede defeat. Instead of forcing users to adopt the new Windows interface, Microsoft could give users the option to boot directly into the desktop, launch programs through an old-school Start menu, and maybe even bring back the Start button. This seems like the least likely option, given the steps Microsoft has taken to make its new interface unavoidable. I don't think Microsoft will cave unless there's a huge backlash. With Windows 8, Microsoft offers the possibility of one device that handles both desktop and tablet needs, without the need for remote desktop applications. Splitting up the OS would eliminate that advantage. This might be possible in the distant future, but right now Microsoft's strategy hinges on exposing everyone to the new user interface, so I wouldn't expect a split any time soon. Besides, businesses have taken a liking to the iPad, even as they continue to rely on desktop software. Microsoft is betting that buyers will like the fact that one device can do both without the need for remote desktop applications. Splitting up the OS would eliminate that advantage. The last possibility, and the one I think most likely, would be for Microsoft to continue to evolve Windows. The new interface would become more powerful and useful, while gradually chipping away at all the reasons you might need to revert to the desktop. Slowly, the benefits that the new interface provides—things like universal search, app-to-app sharing, and built-in cloud storage—would overshadow its drawbacks. Even if Windows 8 bombs, Microsoft won't give up. When Redmond wants in on an important market, it tends to keep throwing money and resources at it. We saw that with Bing, we saw it with Windows Phone, and we're going to see it again with Windows 8. Time will tell if Microsoft can be more successful with Windows 8 than those other efforts. Either way, it's highly unlikely that Microsoft will abandon its current vision and let this new wave of computing pass the company by. Desktop purists may not like the new look of Windows, but it's here to stay.
I'm sorry, I don't know where you get your information, but a lot of the core of 98 was changed. Part of it during windows 95 OSR0 to OSR2.1 releases, and then again with the 98 to 98se release. Windows 98 at it's core was quite changed from windows 95, one of the big changes was USB support but there were many more, all of which were built in the kernel instead of userland which caused the kernel of 98 to be unstable as could be. I'm sorry, I don't know where you get your information, again... windows M.E. was a further editing of the 98se codebase, and windows 2000, which was originally slated to be windows NT 5, was actually built by the windows NT development team, a whole different team than had made the 9x iterations. Microsoft refocused windows 2000 post-haste when it was plain anything they had with the 9x kernel was going to be touted as a horrible operating system by the review sites and more knowledgeable public. They saw the start of the internet sites and internet media viral spreading becoming the word of mouth advertising for the quality of their operating systems, and thus switched their business and server core over to their professional consumer and workstation core. Windows 2000 is windows NT 5.0, and it was microsoft's first true attempt at making a server and workstation quality operating system into a prosumer OS. You seem to again have mistaken information here. Windows XP is windows NT 5.1 you can even do a "ver" in the command prompt and it will tell you this. Windows XP is an iteration of the windows 2000 OS with more features and little true change under the hood, except for the addons of security systems and creature features. The main actual working addons/changes were those built to make Windows XP much more gaming compatible and performant. NT is anything by new at this point, being at release 5.1, as well. It is simply not massively used until this point. You also seem to miss the fact that windows XP is also windows server 2003, all 32 bit versions. More misinformation here, no idea where you get this information... Vista was not difficult to use compared to XP, it was merely built very, very inefficiently and somewhat unstable. It was and still is the piggiest OS I have ever seen for resource overuse. I also have absolutely no idea where you come up with the idea that vista is a whole new codebase, it is windows NT 5.2, heavily rewritten XP at it's core. The 64 bit versions were based on windows NT server 2008 64 bit, which was in turn built and based off of windows NT server 2003 64 bit, which was as well what XP 64 bit was based off of. With this they merely did what they did with Windows 98se to M.E., added a whole bunch of things badly and bloatedly without doing too much to the core of the OS itself in an actual inner feature sense I do know it can be argued it is 6.0 but if you look up the conventional versioning scheme of software it fits as a 5.2. Drivers... I do not know where you get that information either, but if you had XP drivers you could use them in vista... and if you had xp64 drivers, you could use them in vista 64. Granted, not many things were made with drivers for xp64, but this is beside this particular point - vista could use xpdm drivers. Actually, much of the vista codebase was dumped for windows 7, and recoded from server 2008 code (and 2008 64 bit code) with their mistakes from vista in mind along with true improvement in the OS instead of cramming in features at any cost. It was in windows 7 that they finally disabled XPDM support, however in up to some of the later betas you could still actually run xpdm drivers with even aero glass on so long as the card hardware supported it, but this was turned off and from that point on windows has only allowed full use of WDM drivers, finally calling an end to full xpdm and thus xp driver support. Actually, for the new computer user with a touchscreen, the new OS would be great... their problem is dropping support for people who like the legacy interface which has been around in one form or another since windows 95r0. Add on programs are not OS support. That's like saying windwos has support for ext4 and linux binaries. It just doesn't. That's third party apps mocking the ability like a mockingbird mocks other bird songs.
Well on my PC I have Windows 7 Professional 64- bit, Windows 8 Professional 64- bit (Partnership with Microsoft), Mac OS X Mountain Lion, and Crunch Bang (Linux). I stick with windows 7 for most, but windows 8 just isnt a very big change... IMO they just added a multitasking screen. The desktop and general UI is the same except for the multitasking, or "metro" screen.
It all has to do with how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go, I was replying specifically to ismooch there with very technical and in-depth corrections to his statements. I usually try to make my posts more user-friendly but I just wanted to correct ismooch's information for his own future use and knowledge in that post. It's all shop talk, stuff you don't need to know but if you want to know it it's best to know the correct information so you don't misguide anyone else.
