Windows 8 "Bad' for Desktop Users?

If you are all excited about the new Windows 8 like I do, please take a step backward to reconsider. 

Analyst firm Gartner has chosen just one word to describe Windows 8 for desktop users, and it is not something that Steve Ballmer would like to hear..."BAD".

Multi monitor

The Windows 8 has gone through a lot of transformation and is probably one of the biggest change in the history of Microsoft.  

Research Director Gunnar Berger put the imminent OS through its paces in a five-part review which found that Windows 8 is pretty good when used on touch-screen devices.  In fact, there are so much positive feedbacks that it seem Microsoft is really going in the right direction. Microsoft loaned Berger a Samsung slate device and he found that Windows 8 gets around some of the problems he's seen trying to get enterprise apps running on a tablet. 

 

Windows 8 also impressed him with a seamless, all drivers present and correct sir installation process on a variety of hardware, “crazy fast” boot time and pleasing appearance. 

Berger also felt that the slate he tested means he can ditch his habit of travelling with a laptop and iPad, as it does the job of both devices more than tolerably well. 

With such positive feedbacks, Windows is really offering something that is of strong substance, with a lot of cool factors in it. But the big problem with Windows 8 is when the end-point isn't touch enabled. The experience in using the new OS without any touch enable is BAD. 


“Extremely important menus in Windows 8 are hidden off screen, easily brought in when using a touch and swiping with your thumbs, are absent when using a mouse … Prior to this incident, I can’t tell you the last time I had to ask someone how to do something in a client OS.” said Berger. 

Remote access to the Windows 8 computer is also a nightmare.
Metro interface on the remote PC would not accept input from the Windows key on his local keyboard. All sorts of keyboard calisthenics ensued, leading Berger to predict Sysadmin scowling.


The punching line to the new OS from Microsoft would be this:


As a desktop guy, he feels the OS will have a hard time on the business desktop.

“Unfortunately, my area of expertise is enterprise desktops, and those desktops have a keyboard and a mouse; and as much as this doesn’t make any sense, it seems to me that Microsoft forgot about this when they designed Windows 8.”