[BrotherBryon]

Microsoft has a trend for striking out every other release that dates back to Windows 95 or maybe even older, I can't remember. 95 was good but 98 sucked, Xp was good but Vista sucked, 7 is good but 8 sucked something awful. So in keeping with that trend 9 should be good... I hope. A lot of companies are struggling right now to convert over to 7 from Xp before support gets dropped here in a couple of months. From a business stand point it is generally bad to be on unsupported software though it does happen all time with legacy software that can't run on anything else.

[AdmiralRalwood]

95 was good but 98 sucked

I don't think you remember that era as well as you think you do.

(98SE was totally the best Windows version until XP.)

[S-99]

There is a build of FSO 3.7.0 for Windows 98.

Why supported still? I can at least understand why the dos era was forgotten about. What's someone going to do? Play the game with their geforce 4 with the latest antiquated driver last release for 98?

[pecenipicek]

because goober?

[Mongoose]

Goober x Win98 OTP

[S-99]

I've ventured into the weird part of hlp.

[TrashMan]

From a business stand point it is generally bad to be on unsupported software though it does happen all time with legacy software that can't run on anything else.

Tell me about it.

For my experience in my company, we had the least problems with Win XP.

Win 8... oh boy. A lot of problems getting things to work smoothly there.

Win7 is okay tough

[Grizzly]

Win 8... oh boy. A lot of problems getting things to work smoothly there.

Really? I found Win8 to be faster, more responsive, and overall just plain better on the mechanical side of things that maked the OS a LOT smoother, esp. when booting and when playing BF4 (unless you disable core parking on win7).

[BrotherBryon]

95 was good but 98 sucked

I don't think you remember that era as well as you think you do.

(98SE was totally the best Windows version until XP.)

It would BSOD constantly, so much so that I bought Xp the day it was released and I never do that with an OS. The BSOD's were so bad that I found myself rebuilding my machine every couple months just to try to keep it some what stable.

Win 8... oh boy. A lot of problems getting things to work smoothly there.

Really? I found Win8 to be faster, more responsive, and overall just plain better on the mechanical side of things that maked the OS a LOT smoother, esp. when booting and when playing BF4 (unless you disable core parking on win7).

Windows 8 works some what well for home based use but it's business application has been appalling. You just can't force companies to replace all their software just to make it compatible with a shiny new OS for one upgraded software isn't always available and if it is the expense is generally just too much. Getting old software to play nice with the new OS has been an IT nightmare and one of the main reasons other than the horrible user interface that companies continue to use Xp and 7.

[AdmiralRalwood]

95 was good but 98 sucked

I don't think you remember that era as well as you think you do.

(98SE was totally the best Windows version until XP.)

It would BSOD constantly, so much so that I bought Xp the day it was released and I never do that with an OS. The BSOD's were so bad that I found myself rebuilding my machine every couple months just to try to keep it some what stable.

Sounds like our experience with Windows ME... never had any problems like that with 98.

[CP5670]

I use 8.1 but keep my XP install around for a few things. XP's end of life is a non-issue to me, but the 32-bit memory limits are a major problem. 8.1 is generally pretty good after configuring it properly and getting the appropriate addons (Classic Shell, theme patcher, driver signing tools, compatibility toolkit, etc), which was needed with XP to some extent as well. You don't have to ever deal with the new UI, and it's otherwise similar to 7 under the hood. A few old DirectDraw-based D3D games have problems and the MIDI mapper is partly broken, but 7 has issues there too. It should be possible to set up XP in a VM (VMWare seems to have the best 3D support) to deal with some of these situations.

[BrotherBryon]

ME was simply an upgraded and repackaged even buggier version of 98, nothing more.

[Nuke]

You guys on XP are going to get decimated after end of lifecycle.

True, I bet 90% of us will still use XP.

i still use it

on the porn laptop (cant run 7 on 256mb ram).

[Mika]

Not to grind salt to Microsoft's wounds, but: anyone wanna guess the adoption rate of Windows 8? 

Exactly, Windows 8 is simply horrible for enterprise use. Especially when Microsoft ****ed up the user interfaces of Office package, and broke the backwards compatibility. And when they built the whole thing on gesture based stuff, which sort of hints that this **** may actually keep on going if unchecked. Just imagine using a CAD software with an "intuitive touchscreen" !

Also, their recent behavior tends to lead the enterprises to think that if we absolutely need to educate the staff (=courses on using the software) on using Microsoft's software every n:th year, why not simply adopt to a completely different (=cheaper) package if you have to do that? I think Microsoft has just about woken up how horrible strategical mistake they have made with releasing Windows 8 and Office 2010 in a row with where UI backwards compatibility was broken. Add on top of that the all pervasiveness of Microsoft Store, as nobody wants Microsoft Store to a business computer, and I'm willing to bet there is quite a large fraction of people who do not want it to their home computers either.

Additionally, SkyDrive + NSA combo does not sound very good either, despite what NSA says. And yes, I'm fully aware digital surveillance is done by other large powers as well. It is just the fact that US law requires US based companies to disclose information related to companies/persons anywhere on the world on request of the administration.

But then again, I think I posted about this one year ago

[General Battuta]

Not to grind salt to Microsoft's wounds, but: anyone wanna guess the adoption rate of Windows 8? 

Exactly, Windows 8 is simply horrible for enterprise use. Especially when Microsoft ****ed up the user interfaces of Office package, and broke the backwards compatibility. And when they built the whole thing on gesture based stuff, which sort of hints that this **** may actually keep on going if unchecked. Just imagine using a CAD software with an "intuitive touchscreen" !

Also, their recent behavior tends to lead the enterprises to think that if we absolutely need to educate the staff (=courses on using the software) on using Microsoft's software every n:th year, why not simply adopt to a completely different (=cheaper) package if you have to do that? I think Microsoft has just about woken up how horrible strategical mistake they have made with releasing Windows 8 and Office 2010 in a row with where UI backwards compatibility was broken. Add on top of that the all pervasiveness of Microsoft Store, as nobody wants Microsoft Store to a business computer, and I'm willing to bet there is quite a large fraction of people who do not want it to their home computers either.

Additionally, SkyDrive + NSA combo does not sound very good either, despite what NSA says. And yes, I'm fully aware digital surveillance is done by other large powers as well. It is just the fact that US law requires US based companies to disclose information related to companies/persons anywhere on the world on request of the administration.

But then again, I think I posted about this one year ago

[S-99]

I just don't know why microsoft and even ubuntu thought this interface was a good idea. For phones, sure it is. But, to flatly go out and make everyone deal with it is not a good deal.

This reminds me of that cheap ass netbook i had a while ago. I replaced windows ce with android. The test of that was no keyboard shortcuts, no external memory being able to treat as regular storage between computers, and very limited ability to make your own shortcuts (android is only good for productivity with a touch screen on a phone). At least windows 8 offered the normal interface sans the start menu. So, windows 8 eats up more memory rendering two screens when you could get all of your work done on one (this is not an attack on multiple virtual desktops, just attacking the start menu screen), but that's what killed windows 8. Is there any way to kill the start menu screen and metro? I don't know or care. Windows 8 is just a mess regardless of how superior it is under the hood (superiority offering you bull**** is not very superior).

I think the big industries don't quite know what to do with the iconic advanced desktop that was made in the 80's and 90's. The only thing i can think of that is trying to be different is the mezzo desktop on linux. At least that is a brainstorm in progress that has changed multiple times over it's course of existence. I really don't see people dropping the windows xp kind of desktop anytime soon. The one thing i can say in my own experience is that desktop icons and widgets are stupid. I say this because you have a start menu to access programs and directories with (even quicklaunch is stupid). I routinely turn off desktop icons and features because of this whenever possible.

I'm not expecting a flourishing of windows users to come gushing toward linux. I thought xp, vista, and 7 were great os's. Then 8 (including unity on the linux end) has to treat a normal computer like a smartphone. Stuff for phones is handy on phones, not on normal computers.

[pecenipicek]

i'm personally running KDE in a way highly reminiscent of how i used Win7... habits are hard to lose sometimes...

[S-99]

I'm glad that you can run your computer the way that you want to

Now if windows would offer similar configuration as kde for the desktop, then people probably wouldn't be complaining about windows 8.

[Ghostavo]

Can you give an example of how Windows 8 is not like Windows 7 in a way that interferes with their workflow? Because all I see is people complaining about nothing.

Sure, there are flaws in Windows 8, but complaining about Metro when you are able to ignore it completely after the initial setup is facetious.

[Klaustrophobia]

having to actively fight my computer to use it the way i want isn't an invalid argument, even if i get there eventually.  windows 8 does its very best to force you into using the metro interface and its apps in many instances.  that's to say nothing of all the stupid services microsoft is trying to force in alongside the OS.  no, i am not going to create an online account with microsoft to use my own damn computer.  i'm not going to put all my data on your servers, and i'm not going to buy all my software from your web store.