MS Windows Threshold

MS blew it with Vista, made a course correction with W7, then flamed and burned with W8. Hopefully W9 will be another course correction and I'll think about buying another Windows computer.

 

wait? did you upgrade to W8 from xp on purpose?

you must skip versions.

3.1 -> xp -> 7 - > ?

 

Think unified vision between Surface (Windows RT), Windows 8 Apps (modern apps) and Windows Phone. Windows 9 aka Threshold could be called Windows 8.2, it'll be the same style and based on the same kernel - the name means nothing, it is just a name.

Microsoft is looking to push out releases faster because mobile devices (phones and tablets) are changing how often people "upgrade." People no longer buy a laptop or desktop and use it for 8 years, they buy phones or tablets and use them for a year or two. To keep pace with Android and iOS, they must continue to evolve Windows... and seeing that they are "melding" their mobile and desktop OSes, this includes Windows for PCs.

Windows 8 was never meant to catch on in the enterprise. Most enterprise clients are just now upgrading to Windows 7 before official support ends for Windows XP in April. Windows 7 will be the enterprise OS for the next 5-8 years. Source: I'm a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer who has worked on four Windows 7 global deployments for fortune 100 companies this year.

However, Microsoft is also further integrating Windows 8x and future versions of Windows better than ever with the greatly improved Windows Server 2012 - so if companies are smart, they'll upgrade past Windows 7 sooner. Windows 8 and Server 2012 are beautiful technologies when working in tandem. Source: I am a Microsoft evangelist who gives "chalk talks" and training sessions to enterprise customers interesting in harnessing the full power of Windows 8 and Server 2012.

Bill Gates first spoke about digital convergence in a Playboy interview in 1994, and Microsoft is finally realizing that vision. A unified design with "metro" and unified kernels across mobile, tablet, PC, server and now Xbox puts them in a place to change more rapidly as technology continues to expand.

TL;DR - They're trying to keep up with Moore's Law.

Microsoft is very happy with Windows 8 sales rates... FYI, it didn't flame and burn.

Windows 8.1 =D

 

Windows 8 support will be at least a decade, which is on par with all past operating systems, servers and PCs. There's still support for Vista =D

Also, I'm not so sure Threshold will be Windows 9 as of yet, and if it is I'm sure 8.2 will come out beforehand.

Windows Phone 8.1 should hit this year and then they are going to try to keep release cycles in line with one-another across Windows Phone, Windows RT and Windows and Windows Server.

The future of Windows is Windows RT, where legacy desktops go bye-bye. Why? Because Windows 8 "modern" apps run in a sandbox, which means no viruses, no spyware and the like. Also, they can manage the energy usage, system resource usage, etc. It will take a long time to get to that point, but current desktop applications and how they are written are on their way out. Once hardware is in line, you'll be able to emulate classic apps in a sandbox mode.

The future is sandboxed apps (think iOS and Windows RT or Windows Phone). It will saves individuals and businesses billions of dollars a year, and will make securing the systems much easier.

 

My mistake. W8 is a great success. Good to know MS is very happy with how things turned out.

 

Oh, don't you worry. The lifecycle page should put your mind at ease.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle

 

I think it may have something to do with money.

 

When did selling more copies of one os than all distro's of OSX combined become a failure? Next your going to tell me the first surface was a failure too? It didn't meet the demand they expected, but its not like the Wii U where people plain and simply aren't buying it. Did people line up the way they did with 7? No, because 7 had just came out a bit before it. Windows 8 will be better embraced (and it has been) as more of these 2-in-1's are out there. You don't run a 2-in-1 with windows 7, its just stupid.

I don't think they will call it windows 9, MS likes this incremental update business, it will probably be called 8.5 if anything.

 

windows threshold is (i believe) supposed to be like what apple does, extremely cheap incremental improvements.

 

Incremental updates is the only way to go at this point. Its just too onerous and problematic to release huge updates anymore. Its more costly and far less efficient. Its so much easier to stay focused and way easier on your QA and beta teams to test incremental updates to your software.

 

Correct, it is industry standard now. Basically Service Packs are considered new versions.

This is true for the consumer space. What is yet to be seen is how Microsoft plans to support the enterprise going forward... where change moves at a snail's pace for most companies.

They are pleased with the sales. Nearly 200 million licenses sold, and 300+ million by the three year mark. Easily keeping pace with Windows 7 adoption - all while changing the perception of what people expect from Windows.

Windows 8 had the extremely difficult task of changing a product dramatically, the most successful product in the history of the personal computer. It has done so well. Was it perfect? No, people hate change - but it has and continues to do it's job. Prepare the masses for future versions of Windows that will change fast enough to keep up with the evolution of the hardware.

 

I started off with Dos 3.1 and continued with windows when it came out. I have had all the windows version and like them so when windows 8 came out I went with it. Have regretted it. I bought a windows 8 laptop last year. Just last week I took it to a computer shop and had win 8 removed completely and installed win 7 in it. It was a pain finding window 7 drivers for a Win 8 machine (Toshiba) but the computer shop has already done a lot of window 8 computers so they had a lot of experience with it. They have a waiting list of people wanting to convert their Win 8 machines to win 7. They said people are not complains about the extra cost they just want to get rid of win 8. Heck I even purchased a Mac to try it out and I will probably switch to Mac exclusively.

The only trouble with Mac is their banking, money managment programs suck. There version of quicken sucks and Banking program I-5 is to overly complicated. Most of us older farts don't like anything that is a pain in the ass to learn. Quicken for windows is to easy to use.

If some body out in the Mac world has a tip on a good banking program give it out I would like to try it.

 

I am not sure why people hate windows 8 so much. I seriously don't. I mean hell, ever since windows 95 you been able to put shortcuts on your desktop. But you hate live tiles? You can also pin your favorites to the taskbaryou can run 3 screens at once, you can flip through one split screen while the other remains the same.

But hey, it doesn't have a start button, so windows 8.1 sucks?

The only thing I am mad about with windows 8.1 is the fact that you can't create file history backups of skydrive files. Which you could do that with windows 8.0. This is bull****, but other than that, 8.1 is money.

 

It took two weeks, but once I've gotten used to Windows 8 it was fine.

 

Once people realize that the "Start Page" is just a touch-friendly start menu they "get it" more. I've bought Microsoft Surfaces for my entire family for Christmas, most of which had iPads beforehand and they love it. When I gave them out I simply spent about 30 minutes with them training them on the new features of Windows 8.1.

If my 63 year old mother can figure Windows 8 out, anyone can. I just give people links to videos like the one below, and after they learn it - it all makes sense.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/vmZj45XXQNM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

With that said, with Windows 8 Microsoft did a terrible job of training new users - they improved it with Windows 8.1, but could still be doing more.

Everyone I know who takes the time to learn Windows 8, love it. The same goes with Windows Phone. Those that hate it, generally just resist change anyway - and we can't wait for technology to evolve at a snail's pace anymore.

 

There's always the Classic Shell for Windows.

 

Yeah, like I've said, I stopped thinking about the lack of start button after two weeks because it's actually intuitive as heck. The only think is that they should make control panel one of the default starting tiles, but not a big deal.