I'm just tired if 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 computer industry goes, microsoft will probably follow. I say everyone should give more support to Linux on desktop/laptops, that way we will always have unlimited choices. Want a free web centric cloud based OS? Or a traditional desktop OS? or a super lightweight OS for your old netbook? or an OS for your server? There are tons of linux distros for all needs, and purposes, all free.

Still need Windows for my gaming :O Indies are doing a good job supporting OS X and Linux so I'm happy to buy from them when I can.

Once there was OS caled beOS that tried to stop the monopoly MS has on PC it never got off the grounds. MS has pretty much been unopposed in PC OS land forever. But because they feel threatend by phone/Tablet OS they want to change the PC OS to resemble the phone/tablet OS. and they can get away with it cause there is no OS to oppose them on PC. They tried to tell console people what is gona happen that failed miserably and they back tracked with in days, and that happened cause they where not the only game on consoles, they the only game on PC as far as OS goe if you really want to game and just many business use MS to boot. The Monopoly on PC OS is why MS does what it does plain and simple

Well at least their monopoly on the consumer has been broken, that's why they went crazy with 8 :P Great ideas tbh but poorly executed. They've got enterprises covered with windows 7 so that's like 5 years more at the very least. Heck, if they supplied security patches for XP, I'm sure many would probably stick with it.

I like Windows 8.1, it's much easier than 8.0 as it brings similarities to Windows Phone 8 such as the app list. What they should've done in the first place was put the Metro interface on the old style desktop where 99% of the desktop does nothing apart from display your wallpaper.

All they gotta do is take Windows 7 and stamp it Windows 9 and it will sell millions of copies!

As long as they at least keep the option to use the modern UI I'll be happy, I couldn't go back to just having the desktop ala Windows 7.

Actually, I like Metro UI. here's what I do. I have my desktop reasonably clean, only the icons for most used apps and games on the desktop. Everything else is accessible via Metro. so, say MSI Afterburner, always starts with windows. but say I need to restart it for whatever reason. I have it's icon on Metro. all I have to do is press the Windows key and then the Afterburner icon. done. Sure, I could have the Afterburner icon on desktop, but it's a program I hardly ever have to manually launch so it's in Metro. For me, Metro is all about a secondary "desktop" with less used programs. Love it. My desktop is nice and clean. Everything else about w8.1 is just fine, bar some game compatibility issues. Those I have always fixed though so not a biggie.

As long as they at least keep the option to use the modern UI I'll be happy, I couldn't go back to just having the desktop ala Windows 7.

Yeah I hope they don't go the other extreme. That will be incredibly ridiculous. Thurrot did say the Start Menu will be an option so I guess the Screen won't be going any where either.

well the modern UI i find it perfect for using your pc with a 46" hdtv laying flat on a bed, and when you get sick of staying that way you switch to a corner of the room with a 24" monitor and desktop UI, best thing microsoft could do with win 8, now if they make windows sync across all your devices like playing music on desktop pc and looking at your phone/tablet/laptop like it is playing right there and controling it, and having an unified storage system for when i take a picture with a mobile thing and instantly watch it on my tv@desktop, thats how it should work

well the modern UI i find it perfect for using your pc with a 46" hdtv laying flat on a bed, and when you get sick of staying that way you switch to a corner of the room with a 24" monitor and desktop UI, best thing microsoft could do with win 8, now if they make windows sync across all your devices like playing music on desktop pc and looking at your phone/tablet/laptop like it is playing right there and controling it, and having an unified storage system for when i take a picture with a mobile thing and instantly watch it on my tv@desktop, thats how it should work

I think they're working on it with Smart Glass .. heck the features might already be in there by now.

I think the people at Microsoft are complete idiots and not in touch with reality or the consumer. How hard can it be to simply patch windows 8 and allow the user to install or not install the metro ui ? Geez Microsoft is totally brain dead.

I think the people at Microsoft are complete idiots and not in touch with reality or the consumer. How hard can it be to simply patch windows 8 and allow the user to install or not install the metro ui ? Geez Microsoft is totally brain dead.

Building choice into the OS, apparently takes a few more active brain cells than they have....

Still need Windows for my gaming :O Indies are doing a good job supporting OS X and Linux so I'm happy to buy from them when I can.

Yup, thats where the problem lies, gamers have to use windows for gaming. But if you can buy/install linux games when you can, thats better than ignoring it 🙂

i like Win 8.1 MCe ;-) its Best Win-dows to date in my opinion. Fast and reliable. Cool

You're not going to get the major game studios to suddenly start developing for Linux. It's a pipe dream. The majority of the target audience is Windows only. Major dev studios aren't going to shift to a platform where the projected loss risk is considerably greater than the projected profit. SteamOS and the Steambox is ultimately going to fail exactly for that reason. Linux makes up a projected 5% of the PC market....Windows has a projected 90% of the PC market. If you were a dev studio, where would you be focused?

You're not going to get the major game studios to suddenly start developing for Linux. It's a pipe dream. The majority of the target audience is Windows only. Major dev studios aren't going to shift to a platform where the projected loss risk is considerably greater than the projected profit. SteamOS and the Steambox is ultimately going to fail exactly for that reason. Linux makes up a projected 5% of the PC market....Windows has a projected 90% of the PC market. If you were a dev studio, where would you be focused?

This, to an extent. I dont think people realize how much work Valve actually has in front of them before this becomes plausible. Not only do they need to provide competition in the pricing area of things, they also need to justify it. You cant just build a complete game only OS and ship the system for double the price of a console or even at the same price, without providing complete functionality of a normal PC and i think most will look at a Steambox with its game only OS and price tag, then glance over at the cheap laptop/tablet and console that can be both be had for the same or less price. I dont think Valve have approached this right, they would of been better off getting into the strictly console business directly, then after a successful or even failed attempt, would of atleast had insight to what people are prepared to pay for with what valve wanted to bring to the table. With keyword being Console, casual gamers/mainstream murrys etc are turned off by expensive PC, its not a hobby to them, they just want new 'toys' and a price tag to reflect that toy mentality. Us pc enthusiasts are a niche whether or no we want to believe it and if we're Valves only target audience then they are doomed to fail, im mean, pretty much everyone round this scene takes pride in the fact that they built their own pc.

I think Windows 8 is great with either Start 8 or classic shell. Each new version of Windows that seems to come out is even more streamlined and lighter on computer resources. (Apart from Vista) Moving more and more towards cloud computing.

With Windows 9 they should give us an option to choose between both UIs so users can choose which one they want. Since there are users who are used to both interfaces.

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

Vista 64 was great. Never had a problem with it. That was why people whined so much, they were running 32 bit. Microsoft wanted it to be 64bit only, to push the x64 market, but nobody wanted to adapt, so they shovelled together a 32 bit version and it was ****. The 64 bit version, however, was great. That said, it was still a pig xD

after using windows 8 / 8.1 for almost a year i have come to really like it as an operating system. there are some things that i would have done differently: 1) allow the user the option to switch between metro and classic start menu (classic referring to windows 7 style start menu - NOT win XP). That way if people want to use the metro interface on the tablet / convertible PC they can, but for those of us who prefer the original start menu from windows 7, that would be possible too! 2) the live account integration would not be as invasive as it is. I have fought windows 8.1 since inception to not use my windows live ID to log in to the machine, however if you use any kind of app from the app store that requires a login - you're pretty much forced to use your live ID. whilst you can opt to have it only work on that app the constant login requests each time you use the app get tiresome, and you end up just letting your live ID become your PC login. for overall useability the OS is really nice, i like the windowskey+x shortcut to get to some of the most used applets / tools in windows, since finding out about it i use that almost exclusively over clicking the start button / metro. It's just these less important issues that are causing it to have such a bad rep, at least thats how i feel about it. overall, if Windows 9 is like Windows 8 i think i probably would still buy it