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My bad. Should've clicked the link, but I'm lazy lol. I thought you were referring to Browser versions :) And I don't know if Windows 7 is even on any of the pre-built systems anymore. I usually build my systems, so I honestly hardly ever go over in that direction unless helping a friend pick a cheap system for day to day stuff.



When I first saw these stories, my eyes damn nearly rolled into the back of my head. Analysts have their heads so far up their poo shoot, that they can spin responding to the market as a bad thing.



LOL. No wonder I didn't like Windows 8. I HATED New Coke!



New Coke actually scored higher than classic in test groups. It was basically diet coke with artificial sweeteners stripped out and replaced with cane sugar. It was not the TASTE that doomed new coke; it was the marketing.



Sounds just like Windows Vista and the Mojave experiment. You get a few jackass know-it-alls bashing an OS because it's the cool thing to do, even though they don't have even the slightest understanding of OS/software design, and next thing you know everybody is suddenly an expert and Vista is the worst OS in history.

Ask any average consumer what they think about Windows Vista and of course they'll tell you it's a piece of crap and they hate it. Then ask them why it's a piece of crap and you'll be lucky to get one single legitimate answer out of 1000 people.

My favourite is when people claim that Windows Vista was fixed with SP1, when in fact Vista SP1 didn't even contain any widely effective performance or bug improvements, only a handful of fixes which affected less than 0% of users. SP1 "fixing Vista" was 100% false perception and Microsoft knew this, which is why they released it even though it didn't contain anything that couldn't have just been rolled out in standard update Tuesday updates. The real issue with Vista was poor 3rd party driver design and poor 3rd party application design due to developers relying on the poor programming practices allowed for in Windows XP.



Regarding Vista, you can class me with the "jackass know-it-alls," because I personally saw several Vista laptops that flat-out DID NOT WORK as shipped. (One of them I fixed by installing Windows XP. Still working like a charm, despite the fact that the OS predates the hardware by several years.)

Yes, I did use Vista on other systems, and it worked much better. But the question isn't whether it did work on some systems, but whether it worked well on all the systems that were sold with it, for real cash money. And that's a big NO. There was a very real problem. Class-action lawsuit real.

Both Microsoft and the PC OEMs were very lucky to slither out of that one. They all should have known better... but mostly Microsoft should have known better. If the drivers weren't ready, then the OS wasn't ready, and they either didn't know, or went ahead and dumped the problem on their customers.

None of which has anything to do with Windows 8, which is a different kind of failure entirely.



Actually, Microsoft admitted that Vista handled memory addressing pretty badly, though that was fixed in SP1. Having said that, though, I blame most of the failure of Vista on OEM's putting only 512MB of RAM in their systems, adding Vista, and forgetting how horrible an idea it was to go against Microsoft's RECOMMENDED specs (512 was only the minimum).

Now, Windows 8 is a "one size fits all" user environment. Problem is, not every piece of hardware can do things well exactly the same way. If they had stuck to the Windows 7 Start Menu for non-touch devices, but allowed apps to run in a window, I'd see it being more popular.

In all fairness, you mentioned that Windows 8 use is rising. A lot of people are buying new PC's with Windows 8, but aren't told they can call the OEM's and get their systems with Windows 7, instead. Also, I'm pretty sure a lot of people are learning about the Start Menu replacement programs and also ModernMix, so they never have to look at the Start Screen again.



In my experience, Windows 8 is fine if you're using desktop mode and a Start button replacement, or if you're using a touch interface. The problem is twofold: the UI defaults to Metro/Modern regardless of your input mechanism, and there is no tutorial to explain this unfamiliar and extremely minimalist design language.






"If they don't give me back Aero and a Start button I'm going to start fires!!" in 3...2...1...

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