Well at least the menu is back, so I might actually be able to use it, unlike 8. But damn, they still have a tie-in to those self indulgent political news articles trying to beat people over the head on their own PC desktop. I hate that, I switched email services for the same reason. I assume that stuff can be turned off, but most people won't be adventuresome enough to reconfigure it.

Very neat to see this evolve with Metro in the start-menu.

Looks nice!

Nope I guess that's it, I'm done with windows now for good. After windows 7 is no longer supported I will not use windows on ANY of my machines. I refuse to let that garbage anywhere near my hardware.

Too bad, I liked Windows all the way up till XP then they went in a weird direction that just completely lost me. 😒

I think they're doing this on purpose to drive demand, sort of like what happened with "New Coke" back in the 80s.

Perhaps, but personally I hate it. I want the old windows 98 / Windows classic interface back along with most of the utilities and options to exert control over my system. I don't like how windows Vista - 8.1 controls you in what you can and cannot do by dumbing down the interface. Windows 95 - XP (with the exceptions of 2000 and ME because frankly they were terrible. 🤣 ) was intuitive and simple, the utilitarian interface was easy to navigate and the utilities allowed you to have absolute control over your system.

I find working on windows 7 or 8 to be a pain and it takes more time to navigate the interface than to actually get done what I had originally intended to do.
I tell ya when windows 7 loses support I'm not going to miss it a bit. 🤣

King_Corduroy wrote:

Perhaps, but personally I hate it. I want the old windows 98 / Windows classic interface back along with most of the utilities and options to exert control over my system. I don't like how windows Vista - 8.1 controls you in what you can and cannot do by dumbing down the interface. Windows 95 - XP (with the exceptions of 2000 and ME because frankly they were terrible. 🤣 ) was intuitive and simple, the utilitarian interface was easy to navigate and the utilities allowed you to have absolute control over your system.

I find working on windows 7 or 8 to be a pain and it takes more time to navigate the interface than to actually get done what I had originally intended to do.
I tell ya when windows 7 loses support I'm not going to miss it a bit. 🤣

I've managed to turn most of the BS off on my Win7 machine, but you're right, it is annoying how much control newer Windows versions take away from the user. Really, if it weren't for the artificial lack of application/driver compatibility, or 64-bit support, I'd still be using Windows 2000, as that's the best damn version M$ ever made. XP is pretty close when you turn a few things off, and it has better compatibility as well as a 64-bit version, so I still use it on my desktop. It is starting to have some of the same problems 2000 started having a few years ago though, so eventually I may be using Win7/Linux across the board.

I raged at W8 and put 7 back on but 8.1 is much better. Have it on all machines, just had to change a few settings. Windows 9 will likely be the next Windows 7 😀

I still think those who CAN NOT get used to windows 8.1 start are a bit on the dull side 😀

Not just of you, everyone 😁 How can it be so hard to get used to such an interesting interface?
I imagine those who don't find it appealing are those who have a million icons and toolbars on their desktop for no reason. Of apps they only start once in never.

Personally i would change the interface because of those people, but if you can not adopt you can not survive.

Windows9
Windows8
Windows98

I kind of like the naming convention here.

I'm not dealing with Windows 8 or 9. I don't like being forced to use a window compositor. I want my desktop to be purely software rasterized, no exceptions.

archsan wrote:

Windows9 Windows8 Windows98 […]
Show full quote

Windows9
Windows8
Windows98

I kind of like the naming convention here.

I wonder which follows after windows9 - windowsX or windowsP

Sol_HSA wrote:

I wonder which follows after windows9 - windowsX or windowsP

Windows X is a possibility. Windows P... will get a lot of abuse on teh internet I'm sure. 🤣

Is anything really "leaked" anymore? This was undoubtedly a deliberate move by MS.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Nope I guess that's it, I'm done with windows now for good.

Judging from your comments in the Linux thread, I expect you would say the same regardless of what that screenshot could have depicted.

As has been mentioned, Windows 7 doesn't really look all that different from XP once you turn off some of the UI features. Can you give an example of an instance in which "it takes more time to navigate the interface than to actually get done what I had originally intended to do" ?

DracoNihil wrote:

I'm not dealing with Windows 8 or 9. I don't like being forced to use a window compositor. I want my desktop to be purely software rasterized, no exceptions.

How, exactly, can you tell the difference? Have you hit Winkey+Tab lately in Windows 7?

I converted to OS X around the time W7 came out (used only Windows since Windows 3.x) and feel perfectly fine on the unix side. But since I regularily have to test things in Windows I finally bit the bullet and installed the W8.1 test version in a VM.
Since I skipped w8, I never had to mess with the new start screen and actually don't see why everyone is that angry with it.
I do miss the start menu and if I'd use it beyond some testing I'd definitely be installing one of the clones.
Apart from that I could easily adapt to W8.1...

There are always people whining with each new Windows release when it is not exactly like the old version. They whined when 95 came out that they did not have the groups anymore and had to use the Start Menu. They whined about how MS was trying to bring order the hard drive by moving all of the programs into %ProgramFiles% instead of every program creating folders in the base of the drive. Does no one really remember how loudly people screamed when XP was released and did not have 100% backwards compatibility? They hated the extra restrictions for security. They hated the UI changes, they hated the looks, they hated that you could no longer boot to pure DOS. The list went on and on. There have been several threads here where people have whined about Vista/Win7/Win8.

This is not to say that every change made to Windows is good or better than what came before, or that change for change's sake is good, but neither is it automatically bad. Many people resent things just because because they are different from what they have gotten used to, but object to its loss after they lose it. The perception of what are best interface features more often than not almost has more to do with familiarity.

"As has been mentioned, Windows 7 doesn't really look all that different from XP once you turn off some of the UI features. Can you give an example of an instance in which "it takes more time to navigate the interface than to actually get done what I had originally intended to do" ?"

Uh yeah there are plenty of instances where I spend more time trying to find a file or program due to the new "libraries" thing and the lack of a start button on 8. I don't want to have to browse the hard disk every time I want to start a program anymore, sorry.
On seven there are a bunch of minor annoyances. I don't mind it that much but it just suffers from the same issues vista had interface wise.

And yeah I was done with windows back when I was using windows Vista, now that I have a relative who owns a win 8 computer and I upgraded that vista computer to 7 I'm REALLY sick and tired of these modern versions of windows. Windows XP was the only thing keeping me from becoming a full time Linux user and now that I have switched to linux on all my other computers I can't stand going back to windows. MATE is the desktop environment I never knew I wanted. It's simple, utilitarian, easy to navigate and I have complete control over EVERYTHING on the system. Plus making extensive use of the built in terminal is fun. 😜

@stojke I don't have to adapt to a garbage system just because the majority of people willingly go along with the corporate products and I can still survive and thrive in the computer environment thanks to GNU/Linux. In addition I would say I'm probably better off in the long run anyhow using Linux because while using it I learn something new almost every day and wield it's power with greater and greater efficiency. Whereas on windows you do the same old boxed-in stuff you always did, you do not learn, you do not progress, you are simply a user riding on the top of a wave you feel like you are in control but are you really?
I may be biased though since I feel a bit jilted since windows moved in this strange new direction that in my opinion is more of a step backwards than forwards, but it seems that people nowadays would rather ride than drive. The best instance of this are the iPhone users imho.
Also I would like to add Linux is 100% backwards compatible, if something ran on the first instance of Linux it will run on the latest (provided you can get all the old packages and libraries).

This is just my opinion though, we each have them but I think you'll come to agree with me in time. Maybe not though, who knows.

collector wrote:

There are always people whining with each new Windows release when it is not exactly like the old version. They whined when 95 came out that they did not have the groups anymore and had to use the Start Menu. They whined about how MS was trying to bring order the hard drive by moving all of the programs into %ProgramFiles% instead of every program creating folders in the base of the drive. Does no one really remember how loudly people screamed when XP was released and did not have 100% backwards compatibility? They hated the extra restrictions for security. They hated the UI changes, they hated the looks, they hated that you could no longer boot to pure DOS. The list went on and on. There have been several threads here where people have whined about Vista/Win7/Win8.

This is not to say that every change made to Windows is good or better than what came before, or that change for change's sake is good, but neither is it automatically bad. Many people resent things just because because they are different from what they have gotten used to, but object to its loss after they lose it. The perception of what are best interface features more often than not almost has more to do with familiarity.

Of course change isn't automatically bad. That of Win 8, on the other hand, is. Have you ever seen such massive backlash when MS introduced Win 95? Me neither.