Blue Scream of Jeff: February 2014

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Microsoft's Mixed Message

Move to Windows 8, or keep buying Windows 7

You know things aren’t going well for Microsoft, when HP, a major computer manufacturer, announced last month it is bringing back the company’s previous operating system, Windows 7, because of “popular demand.”

Now, it seems the Redmond, WA-based software giant has been forced to extend the deadline for the sale of new computers with Windows 7 Professional preinstalled. Originally the cutoff date was to be October of this year. No word yet on what the new deadline might be.

While the announcement, which was made on Feb. 14, was, at least in my opinion, a real valentine to the business community, it does not affect the sale of any of the Windows 7 Home versions. After Oct. 31, PC manufacturers will not be able to sell computers with those versions installed.

According to Shad Larsen, senior business program manager for Microsoft’s Windows business planning team, this move has nothing to do with the end of support for Windows XP, which is to take place on April 8.

Instead, he said, the company extended the deadline because Windows 7 “remains the largest part of Microsoft's installed base” and is still in the midst of being deployed by its business customers and Microsoft didn't want to make it difficult for those businesses to keep purchasing it.

Or in other words, the business community hates Windows 8 just as much as I do, and won’t upgrade to it.

"Windows 8 still has bugs that cost time and frustration, and the interface is still too new to force-feed to industry,” said David Wilson, IT manager at VectorCSP, in an article on the IT blog site TechRepublic. “Microsoft would be well-served to leave Windows 7 Professional in production and open for support for the foreseeable future."

"Windows 8 is not ready,” added Ingo Dean, IT director of EastWest Institute, in the same article. “Allowing us to continue to get Windows 7 alleviates our need to seek alternatives such as MacBooks or Chromebooks.”

After having to support just a handful of Windows 8 PCs at my day and side jobs, I can’t agree more with them. Windows 8 is extremely buggy and user-UNfriendly. I’ve had USB drivers suddenly stop working so no USB devices could be used until I upgrading to 8.1; wireless connectivity issues on PCs running Windows 8, when the same machines with Windows 7 connect fine; and even issues trying to update to Windows 8.1. It seems in their infinite wisdom, someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea if only some versions of Windows 8 can upgrade to Windows 8.1 through the Windows Store, while others require you to download a Windows 8.1 ISO, burn it to a DVD and then do an in-place upgrade!

So is it any wonder that PC sales have dropped by double-digit percentages since the Introduction of Windows 8?

According to an article on the business website, Bloomberg.com “Every PC maker except China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. experienced declines as businesses chose to install Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system on employees’ computers instead of the newer Windows 8, Jay Chou, an analyst at Framingham, Massachusetts- based IDC, said in an interview. Consumers also shunned Windows 8 in favor of smartphones and tablets, which can handle many of the same tasks, he said. …Consumers have found Windows 8’s redesigned user interface disorienting, and prices for touch-screen enabled computers that run the software are still too high, he said.”

It seems that Microsoft is finally taking these complaints seriously, because this past Sunday, (Feb.23), the company announced that is planning to release another update to Windows 8 in the spring to make it easier to use with only a keyboard and mouse.

Again, the fact that Microsoft needs to release another major update to its product only a few months after it released the last one, (Windows 8.1 was released in the late fall of 2013) doesn’t bode well for the success of its latest OS.

While I hope this new update will make Windows 8 a more stable and useable system, I’m not holding my breath. For now, I’m just happy I’ll still be able to get new computers with Windows 7 for a bit longer.