# Would Windows 8 have been more warmly received if...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 26, 2015, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562 "2015-04-26T07:49:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/21 "2015-04-26T20:28:39Z")
> [@cmkeller](#):
>
> I hate Windows 8 because of all the features that has been available in earlier versions that were left out of the base product. I have been told (right here, in fact) that much of these can be obtained for free from Microsoft’s App Store, but that just pisses me off more - they’re basically trying to drive you to their store so you can be exposed to other products they wish to sell, in order for you to get the product you should have been able to expect to have.
>
> To me, an “upgrade” means you add features or functionality, not take them away. Sure, the interface is different, but I can accept that (though I dislike it). What I can’t accept is that this is an upgrade over the OS I already have. Quite frankly, it’s not.
Does any of this relate to the tread topic?
---
### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/22 "2015-04-26T20:41:58Z")
Yes. It means I think people like me (and I’m sure I’m not alone) would still have hated Windows 8 on the PC even if there had been a tablet beforehand.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/23 "2015-04-26T20:44:58Z")
Maybe it would have helped if you had framed the statement that way, rather than just another off topic rant.
---
### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/24 "2015-04-26T21:10:38Z")
Win 8 should have retained something a lot closer to the traditional Windows interface for desktops and non-touchscreen laptops, and made the touch-tap-slide tile interface opt-in on those platforms.
MS swallowed the line of bullshit that “everyone is using tablets for everything now” and they’re the #1 company that should have known better. The rise of a useful parallel technology does not mean it replaces all uses - or even most uses - of the parent tech. No matter how stupidly people try to make that so by, say, running a business on tablets or replacing email with Twitter accounts.
---
### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/25 "2015-04-26T21:26:34Z")
A lot of software got tossed, with no good replacement.
\*\*BTW–was there ever a patch ort fix that lets you play Civilization 2? \*\*
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/26 "2015-04-26T21:32:04Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> Win 8 should have retained something a lot closer to the traditional Windows interface for desktops and non-touchscreen laptops, and made the touch-tap-slide tile interface opt-in on those platforms.
>
> MS swallowed the line of bullshit that “everyone is using tablets for everything now” and they’re the #1 company that should have known better. The rise of a useful parallel technology does not mean it replaces all uses - or even most uses - of the parent tech. No matter how stupidly people try to make that so by, say, running a business on tablets or replacing email with Twitter accounts.
The 7 or 8 inch tablets we’re discussing are very conspicuously _not_ primary computers for anyone. The scenario I am envisaging is one where existing users of Windows 7 or XP discover that there is a very cheap, relatively powerful Microsoft tablet available.
It should not have mattered at that point that the interface wasn’t Windows 98. Android isn’t Windows either.
The fact that it would, in a pinch, also run pretty much any other Win32 executable could have been a bonus feature.
I remember seeing demand for something like that in the early days. A lot of people were asking if they could run just one of their win32 applications on the Surface RT - not as a replacement for desktops, but as a tablet that would do you the handy favour of running just one bit of win32 your mobile workforce were dependent on.
Of course, Surface RT couldn’t do that (there was an attempt at emulation of x86, but it was buggy and slow), and Surface Pro was too costly.
---
### Author:  [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/27 "2015-04-26T21:34:12Z")
If Apple had introduced the Metro interface on OSX, it would have been hailed as the second coming. Microsoft adopted curent thinking in OS design and were crucified for it.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/28 "2015-04-26T22:29:07Z")
> [@jz78817](#):
>
> probably not. at release, Win8 still required too much interaction with the Desktop in order to do routine things; e.g. the “PC Settings” modern app was incomplete and you needed to go to Control Panel for many tasks.
>
> trying to do that on an 8" touchscreen would have been an exercise in frustration.
This is quite a good point. Is it actually any better now? (I hardly use any of the Modern UI control panel stuff now - I just use the desktop versions - has development of the settings for touch progressed, or fallen back?)
---
### Author:  [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/29 "2015-04-26T22:50:26Z")
Getting rid of resizable windows was a bad decision. It made the metro apps mostly useless except for entertainment purposes. I am an engineer and my work generally involves having a number of documents open and using the contents of those documents plus my expertise to create different documents that are then compiled to produce the end product. My wife is a lawyer and she goes to lots of meetings where people are doing similar things. Looking at a number of different document and interpreting their contents to create other documents. She has an ipad and would have liked to use it in meeting as it is light and easier to carry around. But without being able to have more than one thing open on the screen at the same time it was not a useful tool for her work.
Having only a main thing plus a small other thing on the screen broke the work flow for a lot of people so the Metro (or what ever they are called now) apps remain useless crap for a large number of people. One of the big changes for windows 10 is to allow the Metro apps to be resized and function more like old school classic windows programs.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/30 "2015-04-26T22:52:28Z")
How much use are resizable windows on a 7 inch touchscreen?
---
### Author:  [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/31 "2015-04-26T23:42:35Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> How much use are resizable windows on a 7 inch touchscreen?
Who cares. People are not complaining that windows 8 is bad on phones and tablets. They are complaining that it is bad on laptops and desktops.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2015, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/32 "2015-04-26T23:51:46Z")
OK, I give up. This can just be another thread about that then.
---
### Author:  [@funky\_little\_lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funky_little_lee)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/33 "2015-04-27T00:28:08Z")
I hope I haven’t been ninja’ed here, but at least on the version I have, you can toggle into a Win7 desktop by hitting the logo key + D. You can even add a tile for the desktop to the Metro start screen. I haven’t used the Metro interface since I found out about this.
---
### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/34 "2015-04-27T00:49:01Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> A lot of software got tossed, with no good replacement.
>
> \*\*BTW–was there ever a patch ort fix that lets you play Civilization 2? \*\*
Anybody?
Bueller?
---
### Author:  [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/35 "2015-04-27T01:23:30Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> This is quite a good point. Is it actually any better now? (I hardly use any of the Modern UI control panel stuff now - I just use the desktop versions - has development of the settings for touch progressed, or fallen back?)
8.1 fixed most of the pain points. before my Surface (RT) died, I didn’t need the Desktop for hardly anything.
> [@gazpacho](#):
>
> Who cares. People are not complaining that windows 8 is bad on phones and tablets. They are complaining that it is bad on laptops and desktops.
Funny, I’ve been running 8 (and now 8.1) on my _primary_ desktop since they were released. since I spend 99.9% of my time running legacy (Desktop) software, it isn’t much different than Windows 7.
I think some people just saw the Start Screen in Win8 and immediately shut their brains down.
(more amusing were the ones who claimed they were going to switch to Apple. Oh yeah, sure you are. You’re going to switch to a _completely different operating system_ because Microsoft changed the Start Menu. My ass.)
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> Anybody?
> Bueller?
what’s broken on Civ 2 that it needs a patch?
**edit** : holy shit, are you complaining about a _20-year-old_ game??? cripes, run it in a virtual machine or something.
---
### Author:  [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/36 "2015-04-27T02:47:13Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> OK, I give up. This can just be another thread about that then.
I am sorry that the topic is not getting the traction you want. But you can’t ask why people don’t like windows 8 and keep the topic to phones and tablets. Most people haven’t used a Microsoft phone or tablet so they don’t really have an opinion of that aspect of windows 8. Windows 8 was not well received because Metro messed up working things on the desktop. That is where the dissatisfaction comes from. Asking people to stick to small tablets is like asking Mrs. Lincoln “Aside from that how was the play?”
Apple has a phone and tablet UI and a desktop UI. Google has a phone and tablet UI in android and Chrome OS for laptop like things. There is probably a reason for this.
---
### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/37 "2015-04-27T03:32:49Z")
My brother-in-law is a senior programmer at Microsoft and, over Christmas, was telling me about how he’s put aside his company phone and gone back to Android. He said it’s as simple as Android actually having the apps he wants whereas the Microsoft App Store still does not and is seriously lacking even this far in. It started with a big disadvantage due to the head start that Apple & Android had and its lack of market penetration hasn’t helped drive a bunch of developers to it.
So I don’t know if a bunch of mobile devices would have really helped. You’d just have had more devices to not have the stuff you want on them.
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/38 "2015-04-27T06:18:29Z")
> [@gazpacho](#):
>
> I am sorry that the topic is not getting the traction you want. But you can’t ask why people don’t like windows 8 and keep the topic to phones and tablets.
I didn’t ask that. That is not a question I asked.
[quopte]Most people haven’t used a Microsoft phone or tablet so they don’t really have an opinion of that aspect of windows 8. Windows 8 was not well received because Metro messed up working things on the desktop. That is where the dissatisfaction comes from. Asking people to stick to small tablets is like asking Mrs. Lincoln “Aside from that how was the play?”
[/quote]
No, it really isn’t.
What I was hoping for is that we could discuss whether the current market of cheap, powerful tablets, had they arrived earlier, could have changed the opening of the game at all - and I thought it was possible to have this discussion at abstraction from the done-to-death verbal tennis of “Windows 8 broke my Wookie”/“haters are poopyheads”. Apparently not though.
---
### Author:  [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/39 "2015-04-27T07:10:12Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> I didn’t ask that. That is not a question I asked.
>
> [quopte]Most people haven’t used a Microsoft phone or tablet so they don’t really have an opinion of that aspect of windows 8. Windows 8 was not well received because Metro messed up working things on the desktop. That is where the dissatisfaction comes from. Asking people to stick to small tablets is like asking Mrs. Lincoln “Aside from that how was the play?”
No, it really isn’t.
What I was hoping for is that we could discuss whether the current market of cheap, powerful tablets, had they arrived earlier, could have changed the opening of the game at all - and I thought it was possible to have this discussion at abstraction from the done-to-death verbal tennis of “Windows 8 broke my Wookie”/“haters are poopyheads”. Apparently not though.
[/QUOTE]
I bought a Slate specifically so that I could use the new functionality of windows 8 at debut. I’m going with “no” in answer to your question. I had a tablet format device I could use to ease into it, and I still hated it. I’ve used Windows since before it was GUI. Tablets since the became tablets.
I don’t think you want to hear why I think the grand experiment failed.
Would cheap tablets have helped by enticing new users to the fold, unlikely. Candidly, the user experience was broken, and those who want cheap are also those who don’t want to go to the App Store to buy things that used to be free. Never a good business model. Finally, large user bases do not pivot easily. Nothing here was game changing. Some of it was down right insulting.
---
### Author:  [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562/40 "2015-04-27T07:16:40Z")
If people were used to doing things the Windows 8 way, because they got used to the tablet being that way, then maybe they would accept the computer behaving like that. But I don’t think they would, because most people already had prior experience with computers and they expect the new computer to do things like the old one. Tablets are less functional than PCs, so you don’t expect tablet limitations on a PC when you already know that PCs can do better (not that tablets don’t have different advantages).
It’s like using Tapatalk to browse a forum. It’s fine for my phone. I’m used to it, so I could use it on PC if I had to. But I don’t want to, and if I was forced to, I would grumble. But yes, if I have to use Tapatalk, or Windows 8, then it’s better if I already have experience with it. I just think tablets are too secondary to people’s experience to influence the way they approach keyboard based computers. Today’s kids, who start on tablets when they are 2 years old, might be quite happy to accept PCs that behave the way they are used to.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-windows-8-have-been-more-warmly-received-if/718562.md?page=3)