Windows 9

It's that time again. Rumored release in 2015. Will be shown off at BUILD in April.

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Let's hope it's a legit desktop update to 7. 8 is not really made for desktops.

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8.x is a damn travesty to work with in a profession such as mine.

Trying to tell most consumers that aren't tech-savvy how to manipulate Windows 8 when they're all use to OSes going back to Windows 95 is like trying to drive a toaster through the car wash blindfolded.

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Here's to hoping that Windows 9 isn't a pile of shit.

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Windows 8 has some advantages (memory management was supposedly better, faster boot times, etc), but it was not enough to convince me to tolerate their metro layout. I have yet to find a purpose for it. 98% of your time is going to be spent in the desktop environment, so why shift your focus away from it to make another simultaneous experience?

Hopefully, if Microsoft will continue their trend, 9 will be greater than 8.

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Under the hood, you're right - it's a bit better optimized and I have no problem with that.

I just don't want a damn tablet OS in my 2-3 screen desktop.

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Agreed. The metro layout is too sluggish and bulky with a keyboard and mouse. If 9 just removed the metro layout and brought the old desktop (with the start button) back to the front stage, then I would be content.

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Wow, I think they're going way too fast, but I hope that they do improve the OS.

Also, I agree that the metro start menu wasn't such a good idea, but does no one know about Start8?

Well another thing to consider is the manufacturing support for Windows 8 machines, especially laptops with the damn SSD+HDD combinations. Fuuuuuck fixing those machines if you're a third party doing warranty work for them. I have never seen a more incompetent process in my life dealing with several vendors in that exchange. Hardly anyone knows how to fix them back to factory, since there's no keycode on the actual laptops just in case the worst happens and you have to reinstall, and very few get how UEFI works in comparison to BIOS when you go to call them up.

It's like: 'Shit, why sell the product if you don't even know how to use it yourself?!' Most just refer us back to the manufacturer themselves, which means we can't make money off of it unless the customer wants to get it fixed through us in an alternate method.

Getting the customer to agreed to backtrack to Windows 7 for a fee ACTUALLY WORKS half the time...that's how many people hate Windows 8 that are normal, not-so tech-savvy people.


I try to steer away from Iobit products...never trusted them.

But a similar solution that does essentially the same thing is Classic Shell. They've been around in the game longer.

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Start8 is not IObit, and I wouldn't trust them either. Also Start8 is probably the closest you can get to having the Windows 7 menu, I personally didn't like Classic Shell.

I just caught myself on that...Start8 is Stardock. Start Menu 8 is Iobit. My bad.

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Another good alternative is Classic Shell, which does pretty much the same thing. But you bring up a point. Installing things that modify Windows components can be risky if you don't know the source. I prefer to avoid it altogether since to me it's just one more thing that can break.

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Leaker suggests debut of the OS in October of this year.

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I've used and liked 8 for a while now. But when they updated 8.1 it really made me hate a few things like the newer search function.
Overall I think 8 gets bashed too much. In general, it's works and feels just like 7 only with more options and improved features, not to mention that super fast boot up time. I hope Windows 9 is even better than 8.

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The bigger picture that bothers me about Windows 8 isn't so much the metro layout, but what it means for Windows as a product. The reason for Windows 8 is that they want to shoe horn users into a "walled garden" environment, where Microsoft controls what apps are available through their store, like Apple does with iTunes. We can't pretend that Windows 8 is just like Windows 7 with the Metro UI tacked on - they REALLY want you to use the Metro UI (which is why it's not completely avoidable). It's the whole paradigm of trying to reproduce Apple's success with iOS, taking some of it's market away.

At any rate, I don't think we're going to see a shift back to the traditional desktop only intreface, not while Ballmer's still around

Last I heard he was out the door.

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