Windows 8: how did so much suck happen?

Lolly said:
It's not illegal to breach a contract and chances are that you are not doing that in any case.

Even worse than people not realizing what is going on is the way that they've sucked up the misinformation spread by those who want them to do as they're told.

It isn't just a "subscription model" that's in the works, it's also control of the hardware so that if you do anything "illegal" (:D) according to the software licensor, they'll shut you down....
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I could see how MS might want to sell an OS license that has to be renewed every year or else it will stop working altogether. I would not put it past them to try.

But I think their grip on the market is becoming weaker rather than stronger. Look at Chromebooks. I can see why MS is bitching about "scroogled." They are feeling the pinch from $250 laptops that are great for someone who just wants Internet access. I just bought a brand-new Windows 8 Asus laptop for a friend for $280. It's pretty nice, too. How much did Asus pay MS for that license, to keep the cost so low? Google gives the OS away to collect data and provide a platform for advertising. SteamOS is the same way. Valve is fed up with Windows as a platform for their business so they decided to create their own platform, and it is open source so they certainly won't be collecting license fees. What if game developers flock to it, and Linux becomes a major gaming OS? Then other developers will start to provide all the kinds of software that is available for Windows.

Other companies might gain a stranglehold on some niche and use it to bilk users, but Windows is struggling and the end could come suddenly. Four years ago, when I bought my Blackberry, it was the ultimate smart phone...

BTW... did you used to be on wa.general back in the day?
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
...Valve is fed up with Windows as a platform for their business so they decided to create their own platform, and it is open source so they certainly won't be collecting license fees. What if game developers flock to it, and Linux becomes a major gaming OS? Then other developers will start to provide all the kinds of software that is available for Windows.
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God, I hope so. A security update in iOS7 means I can't currently get online on my Linux box so I'm back on Windows for now. But I much prefer Ubuntu's Unity because it's the best thing to happen to the desktop in years.

When you're used to having 9 virtual desktops at your disposal, and an elegant way to switch between them, the clunky Window's add-on I'm currently using (which is almost as bad as the approach taken in Mint's Cinnamon) is very frustrating indeed.

Of course there are plenty of people who insist that ancient Linux desktops from the middle ages were the peak of development, and that my beloved Unity is the evil spawn of Satan. But those people are all nutters, much like the ones insisting that Windows 7 (or even WinXP) is better than Windows 8 when it clearly isn't.
 
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megaresp said:
God, I hope so. A security update in iOS7 means I can't currently get online on my Linux box so I'm back on Windows for now. But I much prefer Ubuntu's Unity because it's the best thing to happen to the desktop in years.

When you're used to having 9 virtual desktops at your disposal, and an elegant way to switch between them, the clunky Window's add-on I'm currently using (which is almost as bad as the approach taken in Mint's Cinnamon) is very frustrating indeed.

Of course there are plenty of people who insist that ancient Linux desktops from the middle ages were the peak of development, and that my beloved Unity is the evil spawn of Satan. But those people are all nutters, much like the ones insisting that Windows 7 (or even WinXP) is better than Windows 8 when it clearly isn't.
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That's the nice thing about Linux. You can have Unity, I can have LXDE.

I suppose you're using your phone for wifi or tethering and something has happened so it works with Windows but not Linux. Am I right?

That is exactly the kind of issue that keeps me on Windows. Developers serve Windows first and foremost, because of its market share.
 
BenBurch said:
And nobody is going to tolerate that until and unless MS makes its own hardware like Apple does.
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They are already tolerating it (ie not objecting to "off-switches" being built into the hardware they are buying) and you don't have to make it to control it. It works the same way.
Charlie Wilkes said:
But I think their grip on the market is becoming weaker rather than stronger.
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and I'm saying that the "market" is disappearing. Nobody has a grip on something which no longer exists....
 
I have a cheap Gateway computer that I bought recently to use as a lab for work.

I upgraded it to 8.1 and it ran okay for a couple of days.

This morning, it will not start. I get the 8.1 lock screen with a yellow exclamation point on the lock screen and then it just dies. I can't get to the OS at all.

So, I start trying to figure out how to get to safe mode to do a repair. What I find out is this:

In Windows 8, Safe Mode is accessed from Startup Settings, which itself is accessed from the Advanced Startup Options menu. Unfortunately, Startup Settings only appears as an option in Advanced Startup Options if you access it from Windows 8. In other words, Windows 8 needs to be working properly before you can boot into Safe Mode, which you only really need to use if Windows 8 isn't working properly.

So, I figured I'd create a repair disk from my son's WIN-8 computer and switch the boot drive in bios. I can't into BIOs on this peice of crap. Gateway says hit F1 or F2, I've tried both.


Windows 8 truly sucks.
 
Faydra said:
So, I figured I'd create a repair disk from my son's WIN-8 computer and switch the boot drive in bios. I can't into BIOs on this peice of crap. Gateway says hit F1 or F2, I've tried both.


Windows 8 truly sucks.
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Getting into BIOS is nothing to do with Microsoft. I know you know this, but it's worth pointing out.
 
Rat said:
Getting into BIOS is nothing to do with Microsoft. I know you know this, but it's worth pointing out.
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I do know that, I am just frustrated and ranting.

My problem with Windows 8 here is the safe mode catch-22.
 
megaresp said:
God, I hope so. A security update in iOS7 means I can't currently get online on my Linux box so I'm back on Windows for now. But I much prefer Ubuntu's Unity because it's the best thing to happen to the desktop in years.
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You wrote "desktop" instead of Mint, FYI.

Of course there are plenty of people who insist that ancient Linux desktops from the middle ages were the peak of development, and that my beloved Unity is the evil spawn of Satan. But those people are all nutters, much like the ones insisting that Windows 7 (or even WinXP) is better than Windows 8 when it clearly isn't.
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And much like the ones defending Windows 8, you are giving no reasons for the supposed superiority.

Unity is objectively a failure, even more so than 8, because at least Microsoft has the Surface.
 
Faydra said:
I do know that, I am just frustrated and ranting.

My problem with Windows 8 here is the safe mode catch-22.
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It's not that much of a catch-22, as even the site you quoted explains. It is slightly more of a pain to get into safe mode than it was in previous versions, and I have no idea why, but it is still quite possible to do. If the machine is so hosed that it can't get to the point at which you pick it, then it couldn't have done so with previous versions of Windows either.
 
My favorite Windows is still XP, because when I was in middle school I figured out that you can remove the password of the main account by going into safe mode and logging in as Administrator, which had no password.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
My favorite Windows is still XP, because when I was in middle school I figured out that you can remove the password of the main account by going into safe mode and logging in as Administrator, which had no password.
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That's not a feature of XP; that's a feature of the way your school set up their PCs.
 
Rat said:
That's not a feature of XP; that's a feature of the way your school set up their PCs.
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IIRC, on pre SP2 Windows XP, this is how it worked by default. You could set a password on the Aministrator account, but by default it had no password, but was not shown on the Welcome Screen. Of course, if set up this way, all you had to do was hit ctrl-alt-delete twice to get a login prompt, type Administrator in the user name field, and leave the password blank. No competent IT person would leave one set up this way.
 
Ah, much fun was had by my friends and I in school playing around in the admin areas. It all began one day when I watched one of them type their password in. It was "start", which gave me a clue as to what level of cunning to expect from the rest. That stood us in good stead for a couple of months until they noticed us poking around (by what we'd done, rather than through catching any of us doing it) and changed their passwords.

One of the IT staff was pregnant. I tried "baby" for her account. Got in, first try.

We didn't actually accomplish anything being in there, or even cause much real mischief, but it was always a giggle to have access to things you weren't supposed to, and not get caught.
 
Rat said:
That's not a feature of XP; that's a feature of the way your school set up their PCs.
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These were home PCs. The XP default is to create this hidden account with no password. Most home users were unaware the account existed, let alone that they needed to give it a password.
 
That's peculiar. I have set up hundreds of XP machines, although admittedly something like 95% of those were Pro. In every single instance, it prompts for local admin password during the installation process. You can leave it blank, but you are prompted for one. Obviously there are installation discs by manufacturers like HP, and these might well follow the procedure described, but they also do lots of other stupid things.
 
Brian-M said:
I gave up on Windows ages ago. There are other operating systems available if you don't like it.

It doesn't even have to cost you any money to check out the alternatives. I went the free route and tried out several different versions of Linux and BSD until I found one I liked. I'm now running Xubuntu on my desktop. You can download it for free here if you're interested.

(Just make sure to backup your important files before installing a new OS, to be on the safe side.)
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Heh. This reminds me of an offhand comment I heard from some Microsoft guy at a party. Somebody was complaining about Vista (which was new at the time), and he guffawed "Well, everybody will have to switch to it eventually. What else are they going to do? Use Linux?"

Well, yeah. Why not? I hopped onto the GNU/Linux train back in college, and dual-booted with Kubuntu and Windows XP for awhile. Eventually, I realized that I was spending less and less time in Windows, and then finally weaned myself off it entirely. The most common issue I hear from people is "But I won't get to use my favorite software anymore!" Sure, there are programs that let you run Windows apps on Linux (like Wine), but I found out that all of the Windows software that I liked had Linux equivalents that were as good or better.
 
Rat said:
It's not that much of a catch-22, as even the site you quoted explains. It is slightly more of a pain to get into safe mode than it was in previous versions, and I have no idea why, but it is still quite possible to do. If the machine is so hosed that it can't get to the point at which you pick it, then it couldn't have done so with previous versions of Windows either.
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How can it get to a lock screen, though? Is this a firmware error rather than an OS or disk error? Somehow I doubt it.
 
Maybe "lock screen" was the wrong term... It's that first screen you see in 8.1 that you hit enter (I guess that's what your supposed to do) and it takes you to the logon screen.

I did finally get into bios and was able to get into Windows, from there I restored to factory defaults and I'm back up.

I can't create a recovery CD, I have to create a recovery USB drive. Or maybe there's some way to tell it to create a recovery CD, I don't know. It's certainly not giving me that option. (WHY in holy hell can't I create a recovery CD?).

I'm so ready to throw this thing out the window.
 
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