Windows 8, 8.1 & 10 versus Windows 7

Unifex, I agree absolutely with everything you have written. Nice post!

It really doesn't matter what anyones opinion is. Microsoft is on this path and will not be changing it.

You have two options, stick with Windows 7 until it no longer works for you, or get on the new platform. Windows 7 will only be supported for another 5 years.. which is a long time for sure, but 5 years comes pretty quickly. Remember, Windows 7 was released 6 years ago. You can keep using it after it's no longer supported, but you'll be at increased risk from malware and other attacks.

What's more, IE will become less and less supported as well, so you will find more and more sites that want you to be on Edge (you will of course be able to use Chrome or FF, but even Chrome drops support.. for instance, Chrome is dropping XP support this year).

So you can either cling to the melting iceberg of Windows 7 for dear life, or just bite the bullet now.

Surely, the world goes forward and eventually one has to get up to date. On the other hand, from a users perspective, change for the sake of change makes no sense. For example, I still keep an old XP laptop and moreover use it more or less regularly. Not for work, but for a few very specific tasks. I have no other machine for those tasks. It does its job and whether or not Google and Microsoft support XP makes no difference to me whatsoever.

Now, at work we get standard Linux boxes, but I prefer to use Windows, so I use my new laptop. Is there any particular reason why? Actually no, both systems will do what I have to do equally well (I really don't care is one is few nanoseconds faster than another). But, I find Windows more familiar and while I'm sure I can tune the Linux box to give me the same experience, I don't want to waste my time on that.

Now this familiarity is important to me. At work, I use computers as tools. I really don't care which OS is there as long as it runs the software that I need. But given that most OSs do the job, I choose the one which is more familiar, so that I don't have to waste time on getting used to something else. A brand new OS might actually have a few quirks that need to be worked out, so jumping to Windows 10 on July 29th might be OK on a test machine, but it's plain silly at work or on my main system at home.

Why didn't I use Windows 8? Since there was too much change where there is no need for change. Mobility, touch, voice, it's all nice and dandy, but it won't help me write 50-page documents or diagonalize large matrices. Sure, maybe 100 years form now, one will be able to simply tell a computer "hey, what's the 10th eigenvalue of that matrix I have on the board?", but for now that's just on Star Trek. The desktop experience does not really need that much change. Do I need all those live tiles? No, I don't. Do I want to have Aero? Yes, I do, I like how it looks and I like to have some of the windows transparent. Was there any task that was important to me that could be done better (or faster, etc.) on Windows 8 as compared to 7? I don't think I can name even one. That's it, to me that means that there was no need to switch to Windows 8. It's the same with Windows 10. If 5 years from now Windows 7 will no longer be adequate to my tasks - I will switch in an instant (and I will know what to do, that's why I am testing 10, ). But to change the OS today, just because at some point down the road it will be necessary - I don't see any logic in that.

Windows said:

I can see where you're coming from. However, I cannot help but feel that Windows users are being forced into this mobile-centric market in which "tablets", "smart phones", "apps" and "the cloud" dominate proceedings. Personally, I have zero interest in "tablets", "smart phones", "apps", nor could I care less about "the cloud". Moreover, it is abundantly clear to me that Microsoft, with Windows 10, is creating overly simplistic and superficial programs that obscure the core system applications of Windows, hence taking more control away from the user. I feel that it is primarily designed for, and marketed toward, the casual user.

I feel exactly the same as you.

Mystere said:

This line of argument has been made many times before, and it always is based on a misunderstanding of what Windows 8+ is.

Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 are not a "mobilization" of Windows. It's not a Mobile or Touch or Phone OS. It's just an OS that can be used on multiple types of devices, be they desktops, phones, laptops or tablets.

There is no longer such a thing as a "mobile os" or a "desktop os". It's just one thing. One OS. It means that you can run the EXACT SAME applications on any device. Not a mobile phone version of the app. Not a Tablet version. The same version.

The same OS for XBOX, Phones, Tablets and PC's. Let that sink in. You no longer need to buy separate apps for different kinds of devices. You don't have to learn different UI's for different devices. You can play that game you love on your xbox or PC. You can use that contact management tool in your phone, tablet and desktop.

Then consider that devices are crossing boundaries... Look at the Surface, it's both a Tablet and a PC. Look at 2-in-1 laptops. Look at designs where you can take your phone, and plug it into your desktop workstation and use it as a desktop PC, then take your phone with you and plug it into a tablet dock and use it as a tablet. One device with different input devices.

The fact is, the desktop PC market is shrinking. There are far more Mobile devices (laptops, tablets, phones) than desktops. The desktop market shrinks each year. That doesn't mean desktops will disappear completely, at least not for a while... but people prefer mobility. Why should Microsoft make a separate OS for a market that is shrinking each year?

In reality, you need to be thankful for Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows 10. You should count your lucky stars Microsoft is still committed to Desktop OS's. The alternative, based on the way the market is going, would be to totally ignore Desktop OS's and focus on mobile. The fact that Microsoft is dragging Desktops into a unified ecosystem is a good thing, because the alternative would be that the desktop OS would stagnate and nothing new would happen.

You have to get this. It's important. You have to understand it at a core level. Win32 (traditional desktop applications) are going away. There will always be support for them, for a long time to come, but new apps are not being developed in the desktop space. Everyone is writing mobile apps. That is where the market is going. If you want to use those new apps, you will have to have an OS that runs them. Maybe you don't want them today... but I guarantee that within a few years, when nothing new has come out for desktops in a long time, you'll want to start using some of those new apps .

Universal apps are more than just mobile. It's cross platform. You can buy devices with any kind of processor, and they work without change. You can buy devices with any kind of form factor, and they work. You're not stuck with x86/64 in a desktop form factor. If you really don't see this change happening, you're not looking hard enough (or at all).

Look at Chromebooks... how popular they are... and they definitely are.

You're going to have to change sooner or later (unless you don't see yourself living longer than 5 years). Why not do it now, rather than waiting until the world has passed you by?

The reason control panel is going away is that control panel only works with x86/64 processors (well, technically, it can work in any of them, but it requires recompiling all the applications for that processor, something third party control panel applet developers don't and won't do.)

Microsoft isn't "dumbing down" the interface. It's just not as mature as the Win32 interface. Over time, you will see it mature to offer the same functionality as the older interface.

In other words, you're drawing the wrong conclusions. When you see a simpler interface for a Universal interface, you see it as being dumbed down. What you should be seeing is "Version .1" with more versions coming to expand the functionality.

Microsoft has a lot of work to do to fully convert the entire OS to Universal, and their first versions are not as feature complete as we all would like. That will come in time.

WoW ,great post ,one day everyone will look at that post and say ,you was ,BANG ON

The one place where Microsoft looks harder than any users of their software, is the future. They can lose money in the market to competitors in the short term, but not too far into the future.

There are new markets opening up and these force Microsoft to change their direction. If Microsoft still just made PC software, it would miss out on the opportunities for mobile computing and especially the mobile phone market. If it didn't branch out into the Cloud, there would be a smaller marketplace for independent software writers.

So far it has found the phone market very difficult to leverage, and every iPhone or Android mobile that gets replaced by another model from the same stable cuts Microsoft's profitability down.

Big firms can go bust, taking their flagship products down with them, ending up as just a marker in the history of failed business strategies.

Microsoft know what they are doing, and just because it upsets some of their long suffering users, they will not change their plan to be amongst the leaders in their field for as long as they can, whatever the direction that field leads in.

Now the question is, would you see your computing needs in the future being handled by old, well worn and comfortable software, or modern, fashionable, but a little tight and perhaps made of lighter material than you are used to? If the former, you are not paying a penny to Microsoft beyond your Initial investment - yet you still expect Microsoft to listen to you and do things the way they have been done in the past, because it suits you.

Or would you see Microsoft going down the drain because they did not change as fast as their rivals did? Then of course, there would be no new Windows to complain about, you would either be stuck, making do with what you have already, rapidly becoming more obsolete, or getting totally new kit to run unfamiliar systems, and retraining your whole business?

We owe a debt of gratitude to Microsoft because it has changed the world, making personal computing popular, usable and increasingly affordable and capable. Just because a few features you liked in the past have not made it into the newest build, it does not stop you from continuing to use your old system until you find that someone has written an app to fill the gap, or maybe you might just do it yourself and make your fortune.

"Write an app to fill the gap!"

Fafhrd, you have raised some interesting points, although I believe that we have palpably opposing philosophies. I do not feel any gratitude toward Microsoft whatsoever. Microsoft is a transnational business corporation. Its primary goal is to amass high sales revenue and profit margins; it's all about money, let us not be fooled into believing that this is not driving force behind Microsoft's core objectives.

I am hugely fond of a number of Microsoft's software products including Windows 7 and Office 2003, for example; however, I have no emotional attachment to Microsoft as a company. I agree with Indianatone in relation to Microsoft's obsession to compete in all contemporary computing markets including mobile technology and web search. I strongly contend that Microsoft is wasting its time in these domains. I feel that it will never adequately compete with Apple and Google in the mobile market, nor will Microsoft's Bing web search engine ever come anywhere near close to competing with Google's web search engine. In my humble opinion, Microsoft should admit defeat in these markets, stop spending large sums of money on Bing and its mobile computing range and concentrate on maintaining the incredibly high Windows operating system market share (approximately 90%) that it currently holds for desktop PCs and laptops; this market is the "bread and butter" for Microsoft. If Microsoft continues to try and compete with Apple and Google in the mobile computing market, by creating what I perceive to be mobile-centric operating systems, it could risk losing its intense domination in the PC and laptop operating system market, which would be a huge shame. Lastly, although tablet computer sales will probably supersede PC and laptop sales, PCs and laptops are here to stay; of that I have no doubt.