Windows 7 Still Being Sold On Up To 93% of British PCs 295
nk497 writes "The vast majority of PCs sold by British PC makers are running Windows 7 — not Windows 8. PC Pro spoke to several PC builders, with some reporting as many as 93% of recently sold machines were on the older OS. One company initially sold its PCs with Windows 8, but feedback from users soon changed that. Customers quickly began to specify systems with Windows 7, those with Windows 8 'took delivery and wanted to change back to Windows 7' – a process the firm described as a 'nightmare.' Another firm found success by installing a 'start menu' tool on Windows 8 machines, and others said the switch would have gone smoother if Microsoft has offered a Windows 8 tutorial or better explained the new OS."
Windows 8 nightmare (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought my mother an Asus "Ultrabook" for christmas as her old laptop had finally given out. It had a hard drive failure last week, and rather than send it in I decided to swap out the drive myself.
Never have I had more trouble attempting to reinstall something like I did with Windows 8. Previously, you could just get a windows ISO, punch in the OEM serial from the sticker on the case, and you'd be set. Now, everything is certificate based, and will only work with a specific OEM copy of Windows made for that machine, and NOTHING else. On top of this, ASUS wants $50 for the disc to reinstall windows.
This OS was a giant step towards appliance computing for Microsoft. If the next version is like this or worse, I'll deal with support issues for my family on Linux instead.
New user experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Having recently taken the plunge, the new user experience can be summarised as "swipe a bit, here's some corners, now don't drown". I really like the OS now I've had some practice, in both its content-browsing Metro guise and as an updated version of Windows 7 but they've made no effort to bridge the gap between the two in such a way that a confident use of one can get to grips with the other. It takes some real lateral thinking to see what the mouse or touchpad equivalent of a touchscreen gesture is.
It doesn't help that touchpad gesture support is uniformly terrible. A look at regedit suggests that scrolling support is mostly hacked in on a per-app basis.
Re:That's because (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm probably alone here, but I prefer the start screen over a start menu. If I'm using the mouse I find it easier to hit a large tile than a small row of text. And if I'm using the keyboard I press Win-key and type just like in previous versions.
The Win+x menu is also nice, although I'm sure there's a way to get that functionality on Win 7 as well.
I haven't found any useful Metro programs though so I can't comment on their (dis)usability on the desktop.
Re:Would be the same in the US (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course Microsoft is listening.
They know that they can make regular people buy 2 OS' for each laptop. What else are lemmings to do? Install Linux? (Maybe in 2015 after Linux gaming takes off.)
It's like corporations buying PCs with OEM windows installed and then get wiped to install their Corporate image using another license. So each PC uses 2 licenses: OEM (non-transferable) and Corporate.
It's win-win times 2 for Microsoft. They can abuse their customers and still roll in it. They have a monopoly.
Re:This is not True (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wonder how Win 9 may surprise us? (Score:4, Interesting)
The pattern:
95- Crap
NT- Good
98- Crap
98 SE- Good enough
ME- Crap
2000- Good
XP at launch- Crap
XP after a near complete rewrite through service packs- Good
Vista- Crap
7- Good
8- Crap
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wonder how Win 9 may surprise us? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's worse than you think: they missed a very smart play for this nonsense. A single system-level API for tablets, computers, phones, and the X-Box would have been an amazing thing. The same UI is exactly wrong: the same API call for, e.g., a context menu, producing something appropriate for each platform would have been great - and while you can't go very far in that direction on the UI, you sure can on the system-facing parts. If the same system call gets me a new file in the right place for, e.g., program settings, on a phone, game console, or server, it would be far easier to hire devs for any of those platforms.