Tag: Windows

A not so bad Operating System

It is now or newer for this post: rumor has it that the preview release of the next Windows version be announced in a couple of days, after which anything but retrospective thoughts about Windows 8 will be pretty meh.

Well, Windows 8 has received a lot of criticism, especially because of the new start menu, but in my opinion, that OS was never as bad as its was made out to be. I have been using it as my primary OS ever since it was released and been a satisfied customer all the way.

Leaving the start menu aside, here are some things worth remembering Windows 8 for:

  • reduced hardware requirements, so that it could run well on older hardware
  • as stable as any version of Windows I have tried (and that would be most of them- I missed ME and Vista, none of which are said to be champions of stability)
  • cloud integration (in particular OneDrive in 8.1)
  • challenging a 17+ year old UI paradigm: Windows 95 and Windows 7 are very similar on the surface (and what is wrong with that? well, what’s wrong with writing cuneiform on clay tablets??)

I have actually been fond of the start menu. I have never used Windows 8 with a touch screen like it was intended to, but for someone like me who prefers keyboard over mouse for all tasks, the start menu has been a powerful gate into the PC. All it took was removing the default Modern UI apps and replace them with the apps I prefer to use. When that was done,

  • my favorite browser is two key strokes away: Window, Enter
  • email: three strokes: Window, right arrow, Enter
  • word processor: three strokes Window, arrow down, Enter
  • spreadsheet: four strokes: Window, arrow right, arrow down, Enter
  • Etc…

and everything happening with easy-to-see icons and selection bracket.

The start menu also hides the often messy desktop that many people end up having: a colorful wallpaper and 50+ icons for documents, application install packages, pictures and what not. I can’t blame Microsoft for thinking that replacing that mess with an easy to organize start menu would be a good idea, but apparently they were wrong (“don’t mess with my mess…!”). Furthermore, by hiding programs and settings that should rarely be used by anyone, the change of the entire system getting messed up is also reduced (that, in my opinion, makes Windows 8 by far the best Windows yet).

And while the Windows 8 start menu has been heavily criticized, it it interesting to see how a similar menu appear in other desktop OSs, like Linux Mint 17 (and were commonplace in mobile OS long time before).

The Modern UI apps have not been relevant to me. Maybe the apps could have been better; but that’s also how it used to be with the selection of Android apps compared to iOS, especially for tablets. That’s rarely said today (but I dare say it is the case for children’s games, but that’s a topic for another post); so the apps will probably come with time as Windows Phone matures and laptops with touch screen become more common.

Windows 8 is not perfect, but it is an good  and important step away from the old way of doing things. Not perfect, but it has served me well. I look forward to see the next iteration of Microsoft’s OS soon, and hope they have kept what worked well, improved what should be better, cropped what didn’t work and added some new ideas into the mix.

The Declining PC Sales, Follow-up

Last year I posted a couple of comments to the ongoing discussion of declining PC sales (in May and September). Since then, sales have remained unchanged low, but then again, the drivers for demand are unchanged too.

I am not surprised that the recent end of support for Windows XP hasn’t changed much. Any private users who didn’t worry before, probably doesn’t worry now either. Time will tell if there will be one big security exploit that will cause a rush.

What Will Windows 8.1 do for PCs ?

Today it has been officially leaked that Microsoft will release Windows 8.1 aka Windows Blue later this year as a free upgrade to Windows 8.

Well, I just posted a comment that falling PC sales are not because Windows 8 has no start button etc, but because most people do not need a new PC to get their daily tasks done, and if they wanted a better tool, a tablet is the thing.

So, if I am wrong, we will see PC sales rise again when Blue hits the stores, while tablet sales remain unchanged. However, if I am right, then Windows 8 users will hopefully suffer fewer inconveniences and the decline of PC sales continue.

I don’t mind being wrong here, but time will tell, as will my news feeds.

The PC Industry and What People Want

A persistent theme in my news feed is the decline of the PC industry. Some manufacturers blame Microsoft and especially Windows 8, others have blamed the netbooks for pushing prices so low that the industry is not sustainable. Some note that tablet sales went up, when PC sales went down, and remember that the households’ IT budget didn’t double when the iPad was launched.

What I haven’t seen mentioned by the industry or the commentators  is what the consumers need and want. There is an underlying assumption that people must want to buy a new PCs every Nth year. But why should they?

A person who primarily needs the computer to browse the Internet, read news, access email, do netbanking, play a casual game and socialize via Facebook will be served well with an older PCs. If the only other things wished for is a simpler, wireless experience that can be enjoyed everywhere, a tablet fits the bill.

A modern PC can do amazing things, but why would the person sketched out above need one?

(writing some ideas sounds like my next post : )

A side note : If Windows 8 could be blamed for declining PC sales out would be because it is more resource efficient than previous versions of Windows, making upgrade to Windows 8 on an old PC an alternative to bring all new hardware.

Another side note: History seems to have proven Marc Andreesen right and more, when he said that “[Netscape will soon reduce Windows to] a poorly debugged set of device drivers”: the user above can do all that is to be done within a browser, making the OS and the hardware irrelevant (ref Wikiquote)

Antivirus Vendors dropping Windows XP Support

Last week I read this piece about how
Windows XP [is] at risk as antivirus vendors jump ship and the unanswered question “why are they doing this”  left me thinking.

After thinking, I have the answer: “Money”

The Antivirus vendors will put their efforts where the sales are. Looking up the latest statistics of operating system usage shares at Wikipedia, it is correct that almost 40 percent of PCs are running Windows XP, but who knows bow many of those have owners that will buy antivures software? (well, Microsoft knows how many are licensed, but I doubt they will tell me). However, the statistics do not mention how many of those XP installations are corporate, but those that are, should be busy complete ting upgrade to Windows 7 before April 2014. For the consumers that still run Windows XP on their PCs, I dare guess that they have a healthier IT/life balance than me, and so give ITinvestments@home lower priority. But even if they did otherwise, much hardware with Windows XP OEM installations and full service pack and security updates would struggle to run antivirus suites intended for newer, more powerful hardware platforms. I can also imagine that some of those older XP machines have in fact been replaced by tablets that satisfy the same user needs as the older PCs.

A real world example: I am writing this entry during a family visit while installing Win XP Service Pack 3 on a 2005 Laptop, powered by a since core 1.73GHz CPU. It did have antivirus installed upon delivery, but that was uninstalled when the laptop’s performance degraded over time.

Regardless the motives of the Antivirus vendors, this story just confirms that staying on Windows XP is a risky affair, because we can be fairly certain that at least the malware vendors will continue to support Windows XP for a while.