I fear for my hobby, preferred platform, rant of sorts a head, so skip if not interested. Ill keep my opinions of the OS until i've actually tried it this time, unlike i did with 8. Though i will say that i don't like the way that there is all this focus of bringing the "smart phone" environment to the desktop pc, why?: First, Desktop pc's are used for either the office environment (so get off the app store and get back to work) or for gaming/pc enthusiasts of who are clued up enough not to waste time with such gimmicks. Second: No average pc user goes out and buys a PC/HTPC for watching movies, these people either dont know of such a thing, own a console/dvd/blu-ray player or have a laptop that is used for facebook, work/school and they got introduced to VLC by a friend of a friend who's son works in IT. Third: The whole idea of full screen apps on a pc is offensive to me, I feel like this is the equivalent of having fullscreen only folders (eg My videos) of which you can only have one such folder open/on-screen at a time, so to copy and paste from one place to another, would be the same as whats required to do on an smart phone, no dragging an dropping, but having to manually navigate through each folder back and forth just to copy and paste. I know that last part isnt mentioned in the article, its just something i fear is going to become a reality, an OS that looks prettier than being functional. This species is really annoying, it caters for the mainstream of who dont actually understand the things they buy, but if looks pretty, they throw money at it, then they complain that it doesn't have the features they said they didnt want, and instead complain about getting what the wanted. If you design your product for stupid people, you risk ending up with a stupid company and product.

^^ Tits or GTFO. The strange UI they built was a major complaint about W8. Getting that out of the way will alone remove people's resistance towards it. I disliked the implementation of the MS account in 8.1. It provides me with no value at all and this is despite having an active MS account. I tried the Skype app because I thought it could be better than the desktop app but no, I couldn't even sign in the app without using my outlook account on the entire PC. What if my parents wanted to use it? :-/ Shifting settings from CP to PC-S .. ughh. Instead of allowing both to co-exist for users of both the UI's let us force desktop guys to use PC S and tablet guys to frequent the desktop side on their touchscreens. Then there's that ugly sidebar which appears when you click the networking icon on the tray. I hope this non-sense is fixed as well as none of this can be fixed by simply installing Start8. Can go on and on about this failure of an OS ... It looks like this new Windows team headed by Myerson seems to have some sense in them. I initially dreaded it .. he's the Phone guy after all. I look forward to this release!

^^ Reading that almost makes me think that MS are trying to slowly introduce a 'One User per PC' to the world. Leave just enough options in there for multi users, but hide them and make them difficult to understand, that way when MS release a report of features to be removed, they'll actually be able to say with a straight face that the option for mutli-users was barely used bar a few, as such they'll then remove the multi-user options altogether. Cue - More sales, looks better to stock holders, when infact its actually just a forced inflation of units sold by forcing a one user only policy.

Brilliant pic, Satin_Knight! But I guess I'll be staying with Windows 7 for a while yet. The only thing that interested me about Windows 8 was the fact that I could play JetPack Joyride on a PC. Hardly enough of a reason to keep it on my rig for long.

^^ Reading that almost makes me think that MS are trying to slowly introduce a 'One User per PC' to the world. Leave just enough options in there for multi users, but hide them and make them difficult to understand, that way when MS release a report of features to be removed, they'll actually be able to say with a straight face that the option for mutli-users was barely used bar a few, as such they'll then remove the multi-user options altogether. Cue - More sales, looks better to stock holders, when infact its actually just a forced inflation of units sold by forcing a one user only policy.

My pc's have always been one user same for anyone in my family tho.

Every other windows is generally really good. xp good, vista crap, 7 good, 8 crap, 9 good?

What made Windows 8.x suck was that they tried to make it the jack of all trades and that stupid metro desktop. Do the same to Windows 9 and it will be another flop.

True.

i'm sorry but I had to post cos am tired of all the nugatory stuff. I like reading fullscreen news in the metro ui. feels nice unlike getting ads and stuff in a windowed browser. its like a paper as you will. and if you try the Tesco app it's really nice looking at groceries and nectar card app is simple. speed test is nice ... I like windows 8 and 8.1

Every other windows is generally really good. xp good, vista crap, 7 good, 8 crap, 9 good?

vista was was all sorts of crap. While windows 8 isn't crap at all, some just dislike the ui. It's far from crap os

vista was was all sorts of crap. While windows 8 isn't crap at all, some just dislike the ui. It's far from crap os

I agree. Windows 8 isn't that bad at all.

Metro and Live Tiles is absolutely glorious on my Windows Phone, and bearable on my laptop with a multi-touch pad. But on my desktop computer? Yuck! Its just so horribly clunky and inefficient for use with a mouse, not to mention that all the metro apps scale horribly on large desktop monitors.

Windows 8/8.1 is a great OS but it never should have been let out into the wild with Metro only forcing everyone into a GUI designed solely for mobile devices. Biblically huge screw up that like Vista looks to be forcing MS into another OS release.

One of the bigger mistakes MS has made is when they decided to abandon the PC as a gaming platform. Gamers are a large portion of a platform user base. They stopped developing games and gaming hardware and all power went to xbox, just look how others have flourished, most notably steam and mobile. And now its hurting them. I can't wait for an alternative pc gaming platform, I will never go to console gaming, neither will most of my friends. What they should have done is to embrace pc gaming, release xbox games on pc, year later, optimized for pc. There will always be pc enthusiasts.

One of the bigger mistakes MS has made is when they decided to abandon the PC as a gaming platform. Gamers are a large portion of a platform user base. They stopped developing games and gaming hardware and all power went to xbox, just look how others have flourished, most notably steam and mobile. And now its hurting them. I can't wait for an alternative pc gaming platform, I will never go to console gaming, neither will most of my friends. What they should have done is to embrace pc gaming, release xbox games on pc, year later, optimized for pc. There will always be pc enthusiasts.

Defiantly agree...I also think at some point they things will begain to change even though they just released the Xbone they are very underpowered its almost sad lol...same with the ps4 they simply are having trouble running standard 1080p when 1440p is becoming the norm...as 1080p is very old now... Also pc hardware is becoming powerful and over the next 5-6 years will simply destroy consoles without even breakinmg a sweat making it better for devs to again start creating games that require powerful systems something the consoles will simply lack. And if MS cleans up the desktop OS some were good to go oh and lets boost directx some lol

I agree, Windows 8/8.1 isnt horrible. Just lost some support for some of my older games I play, even compatibility mode didnt help. So until that Service Pack comes out for 8.1, Im with W7.

I agree. Windows 8 isn't that bad at all.

Yup, under the hood it feels like a more optimized W7. But I do agree with some points about the interface. Mainly full screen apps on a PC... ugh.

I agree, Windows 8/8.1 isnt horrible. Just lost some support for some of my older games I play, even compatibility mode didnt help. So until that Service Pack comes out for 8.1, Im with W7.

Just curious, which games? Hopefully Update 1 will solve your problem.

Ill keep my opinions of the OS until i've actually tried it this time, unlike i did with 8.

Wish more people would take this approach. Windows8 wasn't bad unless you tried to use it in it's default state. Sure, full screen apps can at times be a major irritant, but sometimes an app is better run in full screen. There is a lot that could have been done better though. Windows8.1, while a nice improvement over Windows8, has issues all it's own. There's several "features" in Windows8.1 that require an MS account. For me, these "features" become unusable as a result. I've been using Skydrive for a few years now and have a lot of files backed up to Skydrive. To access Skydrive on Windows8.1 you're required to use an MS account for Windows. This is a major security issue and a major inconvenience. I'm using Windows on desktop and laptop PCs and as such, there shouldn't be any requirement for "cloud integration" to use the provided "features". If I wanted "cloud integration" I would have bought a Chromebook. I've now had to move all my files from Skydrive to Google Drive as I need access to those files remotely and Google Drive doesn't require that I compromise the security of my PCs.... Basically, for all OS's going forward, cloud integration will be a make or break function for me. If it's forced for any "features" the OS won't be an option. I'm not going to pay for software that requires me to give the publisher direct access to my computer.

If it remains with this push toward make it feel like phone/tablet OS then it still a no go. And yes I tried win8 and that was reason why i didnt like

I'm just tired of Microsoft altogether, and tired of Windows. They may make windows 9 less like 8, but what if they make it worse in other areas, like more cloud intergration, and all that crap being mandatory. Where ever the computer industry goes, microsoft will probably follow. I say everyone should give more support to Linux on desktops/laptops, that way we will always have unlimited choices. Want a web centric cloud based OS? Or a traditional desktop OS? Or a super lightweight OS for your netbook, or x86 based tablet with a touchscreen? or an OS for your server? There are tons of linux distros for all needs, and purposes, all free.