patrick.net

I feel your pain. I tried to "upgrade" my desktop to Win8, and the "assistant" failed and made my system drive unreadable. It took me hours to get everything back to the way it had been before. Then, I tried again with 8.1. It failed again, but at least the assistant could uninstall itself. I'm hoping that by 8.2 it might actually work.

If I can't get Win8 to work by the time XP goes off support, I'm switching to Linux.

"What a piece of shit."

Big Time

They had a very nice product and turn it into crap. Was the development of 8 offshored?

They do this on purpose to sort of "cleanse the palette" before the next good MS OS comes out.

Remember Windows XP (before XP SP2), or Windows ME (before windows 2000), OR how about Vista, before Windows 7.

Is it a game they play ?

Or is it, that by now they've learned that (they feel) it's okay if they fuck up (because of their monopoly), as long as they come up with something good after that ?

Hey its more revenues, from those who don't need a new computer yet, but do need a better OS. So they sell the OS for cheap to the hardware venders, but then cash in on all the OS upgrades.

Machiavellian intentions or not. I can't tell. Maybe it works to motivate them to do better, because after a bad offering, they damn well better have a good one after it. But you would think they had the in house ability to determine if something is not good.

It's enough to make someone finally switch to linux.

What's the best linux OS for people who run a lot of programs that are designed to run on WIndows ?

I like windows 8.1. You can set it to boot straight to desktop and I think of the start screen as a full screen start button. For me it's a solid upgrade.

It's pretty nasty.

anonymous says

Why not take the easy way out and take your pc to one of the 40 some repair/support places in your area and let them deal with it.

For one thing, it's a 40 mile round trip to town, so it's not exactly an easy way out. I do have it booting directly to the win7 appearance, but it still has all sorts of bullshit about it.

Doesn't support some of my existing programs (old word, for example) and - well, it just plain sucks & blows. I'm stuck with it, still have my old laptop for home but for travel I'm pretty much screwed & stuck with windows 8.1.

Microsoft underestimates its audience's wishes. However, Microsoft doesn't give a shit. They probably figure that, if they want it, they lead the world.

I'm still on XPS3 which works fine for my needs.

Microsoft became Microsoft because of the "Designed for Windows" logo and experience. At one point somewhere between, Win 2000 and XP, one knew where everything was. It didn't even matter who wrote the software, all of the usual commands were in the expected place, objectively grouped together. You knew where any properties or parameter adjustments to edit what ever file or interface you were working with or on.

They are now to the point where every setting is a mystery as to where in the hell can you even find it. It really went to hell in Windows 7, but Metro beat them on that.

My friend was over last night, I'm giving him some work to do. He brought an Asus Ultrabook, thingy. It has a touchscreen, but we were in SSMS, and touching the screen for that app does dick all for any meaningful navigation.

There's this new Pyridium where companies keep all of the data they have close to their chest, and any information they show the client is very limited. Just bare bones a string or two information.
We've bought this line of bullshit, because with handheld computing over a data plan that you're paying for by the megabyte, needs to be lean and trim.
As a result now Microsoft's whole platform has been dumbed down so it can accommodate the surface tablet thingy.
Which just blows my mind that those simple little bits of strings take so much resources just to get the SQL server, to the god knows what Service, which maps to god knows what endpoints, and passes through an Entiyframework project, that then maps through a Model object, then through a Context object, then passed to the View. Fuck just to say "Hello World".
And people wonder why the Obamacare website choked.

The newest Microsoft enterprise architecture was embraced by a idiots who thought the technology was cooler than they actually understood how the data was actually being derived.

What kills me is all of this shit is written C# and is all heavy on Reflection, which is over kill on every single line of code being executed, and being reflected multiple times over as what ever assembly your referencing which references yet another assembly that has to reflect properties, parameters, values, data types, ect... Just at the end of the day to build a generic List that you deferred to that Convoluted cluster fuck of a kludge.

OH then some smart ass wants to see a test project. Yes you pushed a bunch of wizard buttons, and then push some more buttons to get a test project, it runs successfully, everyone congratulates you and all go home thinking you did good.

Sure you did, until more than the five person QA team, slams the application.

Microsoft's days are numbered in the Enterprise, if they don't right this right now, or at least stop with making every IT director thinking that just because Microsoft created a new Project type, and technology, that doesn't mean that you are supposed to abandon every thing you ever knew about programming and implement the new shit, so blindly on a high visibility project.

You know a little straight up C# or VB code can really go a long long way. Fuck you can almost do anything with javascript now, stop with the "Best practices" bullshit. Especially when the new said best practice is still beta at best.

Oh I believe it.
Microsoft funds MSPAC, which donated 1.7 mil to democrats and 782k to republicans in 2012....
And we all know about the quality of software excreted by the Left...( read ACA website )

Call it Crazy says

Unbelievable a company like Microsoft can release such a piece of crap...

CaptainShuddup says

And people wonder why the Obamacare website choked.

:-)

Call it Crazy says

Unbelievable a company like Microsoft can release such a piece of crap...

Why is that? They've had 30 years of practice. Every try, key word try, to use the original MS-DOS, or Windows?

elliemae says

What a piece of shit.

I'm in IT and worked with Windows since the beginning and was comfortable with it.

Couple of years back current workplace gave me a Macbook Air, and after an initial small learning bump, I was converted.

Yes I agree MS has lost it's way, and like much of the industry is trying to churn out some shit for you to buy, with zero attenttion to actually enhancing your experience.

I would have bought a mac except for the price. For what I do with the computer, it's best if I suck it up and make this work.

bestbuy - laptops $400
macbooks $1100

Windows 8 was intended for use with mobile devices. Windows 7 is by far still the best program available by Microsoft for stationary use as in pc's or laptops. If you want it installed on your new computer, it'll cost you about $100.00 by a technician.
I feel your pain, but remember the reason you bought the new computer with windows 8 was because it was $100.00 cheaper than the competition.
In the mean time, just bypass all their app crap by clicking on the lower left hand corner of the start page desktop icon and then enter a browser setting, like Google.

bob2356 says

Why is that? They've had 30 years of practice. Every try, key word try, to
use the original MS-DOS, or Windows?

How OLD am I? Hell, I could (and sometimes still have to) drop to command line and input MS-DOS commands, and it works!!! Original Windows? Do you mean Windows 2.0, or are you so young that version 3.0 was the first one that you were exposed to? From there it went to 3.1, which was an improvement. Then came Millenium, which sucked BIG time. Then came XP and all it's versions, then came Windows 7 and now Windows 8.0 and 8.1 - basically another failure. So to answer your question - yup, did and can still do MS-DOS command lines - oh, do you remember what MS-DOS stood for (without looking it up on Google)?

curious2 says

If I can't get Win8 to work by the time XP goes off support, I'm switching to Linux.

And the reason why XP going off support is a problem is because???

This might be the most important point in CaptainShuddup's post:

CaptainShuddup says

As a result now Microsoft's whole platform has been dumbed down

mmmarvel says

So to answer your question - yup, did and can still do MS-DOS command lines - oh, do you remember what MS-DOS stood for (without looking it up on Google)?

Then you are old enough to remember how really bad it was.

MS DOS. Stood for MicroSoft Disk Operating System, which was a buggy clone of CPM (Control Program for Microprocessor a very stolid product written by Gary Kildall which was a clone of IBM's CP Control Program virtual machine for the 360/370) written by Tim Patterson for the 8086 chip since CPM only supported the Z80/8080 chip. BIll Gates bought it from Tim for 75k (if I remember right) because Gates had assured IBM that he had an OS when he had squat, the only product Gates had ever developed previously was a really bad buggy Basic for the Altair. Since Gates knew nothing about OS design he allowed drivers to directly address hardware rather than forcing the use of OS calls like CPM. IBM also screwed the pooch design wise also, implementing fixed hardware address space above the user address space.

Since you worked on MS DOS and windows then you have to know what a nightmare drivers doing direct hardware manipulation was and how totally unreliable it made every microsoft product until NT. Microsoft hired David Cutler (who know a lot about OS design) away from DEC to design NT. David very wisely ignored the gazillion lines of crap Microsoft code, started with a fresh design from scratch and finally produced a Microsoft OS that was fairly reliable. Microsoft made one more version of the their crappy segmented memory windows/95/98 OS which was windows ME then thankfully let it die.

Do I pass? I was programming before Gates got into Harvard and was always horrified at how terrible early (pre NT) microsoft products were. At least since NT it's been more bad interface design problems than true unreliability. There were a number of much better OS's out there at the time it's too bad IBM didn't use all of them and let the market choose.

bob2356 says

Do I pass? I was programming before Gates got into Harvard and was always
horrified at how terrible early (pre NT) microsoft products were. At least since
NT it's been more bad interface design problems than true unreliability. There
were a number of much better OS's out there at the time it's too bad IBM didn't
use all of them and let the market choose.

Very GOOD! Give that man a kewpie doll! Now we can move on to exciting subjects like programming in Cobol or Fortran. Yup, I'm THAT old.

SoftShell says

And we all know about the quality of software excreted by the Left...( read ACA website )

Jeez, is there anything that conservatives aren't willing to blame the left for these days? Software? Really? You guys are fixated with a one-track mind.

Besides, most people would consider Apple to be more left than MSFT. Lots of people like their software and operating systems.

Be careful with windows 8, apparently you need a Professional version if you want old programs to run on it. We have some stuff on our computer that was built probably in the 90's, won't run on basic Windows 8. Works fine on Windows 7 though.

Waitingtobuy says

Jeez, is there anything that conservatives aren't willing to blame the left
for these days? Software? Really? You guys are fixated with a one-track
mind.

No, Obama is the pits so he gets the blame - period (Oh wait, that was suppose to be my health insurance, sorry).

When u stop blaming bush for everything, we will follow suit... -)

Waitingtobuy says

SoftShell says

And we all know about the quality of software excreted by the Left...( read ACA website )

Jeez, is there anything that conservatives aren't willing to blame the left for these days? Software? Really? You guys are fixated with a one-track mind.

Besides, most people would consider Apple to be more left than MSFT. Lots of people like their software and operating systems.

It's not a problem for xp techies....it's a goldmine.

zzyzzx says

curious2 says

If I can't get Win8 to work by the time XP goes off support, I'm switching to Linux.

And the reason why XP going off support is a problem is because???

elliemae says

My old computer gave out and I've had the extreme displeasure of trying to maneuver through the piece of shit that Microsoft calls Windows 8.1. Ya'll know I'm not the most computer savvy, so I'm pretty much fucked.

The Windows 8 format is ridiculous. What's sad is that the marketing and engineering geniuses couldn't possibly have sat 20 people down for 8 hours and asked them to do typical office productivity tasks on desktops and laptops. If they did, they'd realize that touchscreens are great for public kiosks , but not conducive to detailed office work.

Also, the Fisher Price Colors might be necessary on a 10" or 7" screen, they look garish on a 19" Widescreen on your desk.

Oh, there's software called Classic Shell that converts 8 into the normal Windows machine, with the start menu, bottom task bar, etc.

http://www.classicshell.net/

It's the only way Windows 8 is usable as a productivity machine and not as a waiting for the bus, bullshitting in the coffee shop media consumption device.

Call it Crazy says

I've got some old punch cards, you want them??? They're right next to my Commodore 64 and my 5 -1/4 floppies...

I used to have a cake plate drive from a 3340 drive. You got 30 meg removable on top and 30 meg removable on the bottom (which was why the drive was called the winchester as in 30-30 rifle) for only 100k in 1973 dollars. Those were the days my friend.

Which is why I use a Mac with superior Mac OS X compared to M$ Winblows crap.