Windows 8

[Reg]

Good idea. I'll see if I can get a couple of copies tomorrow.

Edit: Just ordered two copies of Windows 7 this morning.  I'm sure going to feel foolish if Microsoft buckles and adds a "Windows Classic" mode to Windows 8. 

[Trippy]

From a gaming perspective, if there a reason to upgrade from 7 to 8?  Performance upgrades or anything?

For games 8 is not any faster than 7, sometimes is slower, and there are occasional compatibility issues. At some point, though, I expect Microsoft will pull a Vista and make some version of DirectX Windows 8-only. Of course non-Microsoft game developers will continue to make their games work with Windows 7 and below just like they did with Vista and DirectX 10.

That was fast: DirectX 11.1 Windows 8 only

[Reg]

I doubt that will work any better for Windows 8 than it did for Vista.  I stuck to my XP for years before reluctantly switching to Vista when I bought a new system.  I didn't miss out on any games that I knew of.  I'll install Windows 7 on my next new system and then just wait it out until Windows 9 comes out.

[Hammond]

From a gaming perspective, if there a reason to upgrade from 7 to 8?  Performance upgrades or anything?

For games 8 is not any faster than 7, sometimes is slower, and there are occasional compatibility issues. At some point, though, I expect Microsoft will pull a Vista and make some version of DirectX Windows 8-only. Of course non-Microsoft game developers will continue to make their games work with Windows 7 and below just like they did with Vista and DirectX 10.

That was fast: DirectX 11.1 Windows 8 only

Which means nobody on the planet except for Microsoft devs or people being paid by microsoft will code a game to only use 11.1.  Good luck getting the public to switch for that reason.

[calapine]

This is a bit above my PC knowledge level [that was a disclaimer right there], but I just googled for DirectX 11.1 features and it seems to changes aren't that substantial. So one wont be missing out a lot by not upgrading.

That said, that is a very dickish move by Microsoft. I really hope 8 gets Vista-level bad word of mouth and MS learns a lesson. Probably wont happen though.

Edit: MSDN Direct3D 11.1 feature page for anyone who wants to make their own conclusions.

[tgr]

It didn't work for DX10 and Vista, it won't work for DX11.1 and Win8 either. I stuck to XP until either latter half 2010 or 2011, I forget, and even then it was just because I thought the taskbar program pinning was awesome. DX10 had absolutely nothing to do with it, especially since I think DX9 delivers more than sufficient graphics quality for any game out there to be well playable.

As for the features of DX11.1, supposedly the only feature worth even mentioning there, for gamers, was native stereoscopic support.

Yawn.

[Raph]

There's also no GL support on RT.

[Miasma]

Head of the Windows unit of Microsoft is suddenly gone.

[Quinton]

There's also no GL support on RT.

Amusing, since OpenGL was the *only* GPU API supported on those chipsets (eg, Tegra 3) before Microsoft started working with them (DX likely involved a bunch of work).

[Ingmar]

Head of the Windows unit of Microsoft is suddenly gone.

Hidden in there is the pretty cool news that Microsoft will have a woman heading its most important development group.

[Vaiti]

I do find it super amusing that instead of you know, going all DX12 or whatever for this sudden switch to Windows 8 only, they can't be arsed and just shoehorned it in DX 11.1 without adding anything to warrant it.
IIRC when DX 10 did it back in the Vista days they kept shouting that they did it because they HAD to. They had to you see, anything before Vista just wouldn't handle the awesome of DX10. 10 is one whole number bigger than 9. MASSIVE.

Now they don't even try to hide it.

[Ingmar]

Not to get in the way of a good Microsoft rant, but the changes in DirectX 10 actually did require Vista due to all the stuff that was dependent on Vista's various driver changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model

[luckton]

Not to get in the way of a good Microsoft rant, but the changes in DirectX 10 actually did require Vista due to all the stuff that was dependent on Vista's various driver changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model

I hear you, but on that logic, what changes in 11.1 are things that they can't do in Windows 7 since both 7 and 8 are essentially the same thing, especially since 8 didn't actually ship with 11.1, but is instead getting patched in?  Would it actually kill MS that much to support 7 for a little while longer, since you still have a pretty big chunk of the market STILL on XP and are just now considering the move to 7, let alone 8?

[Chimpy]

Even though MS says they want to push people to upgrade to 8 faster, I am betting they will cave a bit on 7 support and keep it running longer due to enterprise customers. Shit, they don't even have official support for Server 2012 or Windows 8 in SCCM 2012 and that is their own flagship enterprise endpoint management product.

[tgr]

If their new touch interface is going to be their new interface going forward, without a way to get back a proper interface, then I'm just going to go back to kubuntu or whatever distro is good when it's time to upgrade from Win7 and see if I can't make do with the few games I'll still be playing at that point.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Even though MS says they want to push people to upgrade to 8 faster, I am betting they will cave a bit on 7 support and keep it running longer due to enterprise customers. Shit, they don't even have official support for Server 2012 or Windows 8 in SCCM 2012 and that is their own flagship enterprise endpoint management product.

This.  Where I work, we're still rolling out Win7 and that's not being pushed hard either.  It's typically done as part of a refresh.  A lot of that is because of compatibility with various apps that are used around here and the qualifications are pretty stringent, considering we have a ton of FDA and regulatory compliance to follow.  Heck, once of our major projects this year is the MS Office 2010 upgrade, working out compliance and compatibility, etc.  That's not a quicky upgrade going on.  I really, really can't see us changing to anything but Win7 at this point and I highly doubt Win8 is going to be very useful in a corporate setting unless it looks/feels/acts like Win7.

[ghost]

Even though MS says they want to push people to upgrade to 8 faster, I am betting they will cave a bit on 7 support and keep it running longer due to enterprise customers. Shit, they don't even have official support for Server 2012 or Windows 8 in SCCM 2012 and that is their own flagship enterprise endpoint management product.

I am anticipating a Final Fantasy XIV level of "oops, we fucked up" and for Windows 9 to be out within a year or so.

[Salamok]

I am anticipating a Final Fantasy XIV level of "oops, we fucked up" and for Windows 9 to be out within a year or so.

The software assurance conspiracy theorists would say that in order for Microsoft to maximize profits they need to wait a bit more than a year to release a true Windows 7 upgrade.

[Fabricated]

I'll shit if they honestly think that they'll be able to convince any large enterprise shop to go to Win8.

I know a lot of people who work in various enterprise environments and not a single one of them has been running Win7 for more than a year and that's including where I work. We only really rolled out Win7 this last summer and we're still picking off the odd WinXP desktop as they come up for redeployment or salvage.

[Hammond]

I had my first call from one of our sales people asking if one of the products we use would work under windows 8.  After I stopped laughing I told him he should talk to the company that sells it and not hold his breath. 

In our environment we are going to be on windows 7 for the next few years.  We only have a few windows xp machines left and no vista ones.  Some of the XP machines will stick around until they die because they are tied to industrial machines and the software only works under xp.....

[Ginaz]

I'll shit if they honestly think that they'll be able to convince any large enterprise shop to go to Win8.

I know a lot of people who work in various enterprise environments and not a single one of them has been running Win7 for more than a year and that's including where I work. We only really rolled out Win7 this last summer and we're still picking off the odd WinXP desktop as they come up for redeployment or salvage.

Most government computers (I'm in National Defence) here in Canada are still using XP.  It's probably the same in the US.  I can't see any government making an investment to switch to 8.

[Ingmar]

We have machines that have been on 7 for over a year, but we also still have lingering XP machines and a lot of Vista. We don't roll out things en masse, just upgrade to <whatever is newest> when someone gets a new box. I'm sure we'll have Windows 8 in the environment shortly, especially on laptops.

[Numtini]

I started to roll out Windows 7 this year, before that we downgraded to XP. I don't see us ever moving to Windows 8. I assume they will have to backtrack on it eventually. It's fine for an entertainment device like a tablet, but it's just not a functional OS for working on a PC.

[Ingmar]

Sure it is. You don't have to use the Metro interface.

[KallDrexx]

Seriously, I wonder how many people that bitch about it have actually used it for more than a "let's see how shitty this is" glance.

No one here at work that switched to Windows 8 is ever, ever in the metro interface, except for the start menu which has proven for a few of us to be more preferred than the old start menu for various reasons (mostly due to bigger search and button results).  Other then that we are literally never in metro and it's exactly like windows 7 UI wise

[Vaiti]

I make excuses for Windows 8. But no, seriously. This isn't a case of people hating it to hate it because hating M$ is cool or whatever. You can take that ball and go home.

Windows 8 has a lot of problems. It does. I loved Windows 7 right out of the gate, hated Vista. I owned Vista Ultimate. Kept my beta install of Windows 7 and set to clock to think it was living in a different year for literally years until I finally updated earlier this year with a legit .iso and key from BizSpark

That lovely Metro start has its niceties, but try that with some games running, a handful of weird java open source code GUI tools and 3DS Max running, and then when you accidently hut the start key and that nice Metro Start kills an hour or two of work by freezing up one of them randomly, you get back to us about how nicey nice it is.

Point is, shit is broke. Teething problems this has plenty.

Edit: iPad forum posting bad

[luckton]

So we're all pretty much in agreeance that the rule of "skipping every other Windows release" is still the law of land?

[Vaiti]

It is frankly spooky how well that law holds. But at least this time around the change isn't nearly as dramatic as it was last time. They have been patching it up quick. Once they finish beta testing on all the consumers I expect we will see one hell of an OS 

[Ingmar]

So we're all pretty much in agreeance that the rule of "skipping every other Windows release" is still the law of land?

No, we all aren't. I can understand how you could get confused considering there are multiple people saying that Windows 8 isn't bad just a couple posts up from your own though.  

[Chimpy]

Most government computers (I'm in National Defence) here in Canada are still using XP.  It's probably the same in the US.  I can't see any government making an investment to switch to 8.

Pretty sure the DoD is all off XP due to IPv6 compliance stuff.

[Fabricated]

Usually the real law of the land with any windows release is to not bother until the first service pack.

[ghost]

I don't really understand the beef with Windows 8 so far.  It seems very stable and fast.  All they need to do is patch in a way to "opt out" of metro and bring in a start menu of some sort and it will be fine for business use. 

[Merusk]

I don't really understand the beef with Windows 8 so far.  It seems very stable and fast.  All they need to do is patch in a way to "opt out" of metro and bring in a start menu of some sort and it will be fine for business use. 

Which I understand they won't do because it's "The Feature" of the release.  Too bad it's also the largest portion of the beef with Windows 8.

[ghost]

Oh, they'll do it once no business anywhere buys it.

[MahrinSkel]

They're looking at the way that Android is absolutely dominating the tablet and phone markets, and seeing a day coming where the go-to computing device for personal use is a core unit that happens to make phone calls and gets plugged into other peripherals (like screens, keyboards, etc.) as needed.  People will want a smooth transition between these different modes, and they're hoping that by making their desktop/laptop experience touch-centric, they'll be able to leverage their dominance there.

Not sure it's a good strategy even if the implementation wasn't lacking.  Which it is.

--Dave