Windows 8

Except when it comes to monopolies. Then you have no choice.

Psh, sooner or later someone will decide to start up their own better service, and the all the pissed-off people can flock to there.

I'd say that there isn't really a true monopoly anywhere. Windows 7 will be around for years to come, and a recent survey inside the managed services community(which is the bread and butter of my company) has reported that 74 percent of businesses have already made the decision to not get windows 8, and to either keep their current OS or go to 7.

Don't like nvidia? Go ATI. Don't like Intel? Go with AMD. Don't like anything by Microsoft? There's Apple(blegh) or a bajillion forms of Linux, many of which are quite good and well supported.

There are always options. Hardware is limited, but still has options, possibilities for software applications are limitless.

The problem is the same with IE and Windows 95/98. MS wants to integrate Skydrive and Xbox whether you want it or not. To paraphrase Todd In the Shadows on Nickeback: it's not that Microsoft sucks, it's that their software/OS decisions suck so consistently.

There should be a thread on Skydrive, that I agree on.

I predict that Windows 8 won't be a flop, but will be to Windows 7, what Windows ME was to Windows 98.

edited 3rd Nov '12 8:36:21 PM by TairaMai

Hah, I had Windows ME for a few years. That's how I got all my troubleshooting experience that landed me a job in IT, shit kept breaking all the time.

If Sky Drive is only integrated with Xbox, I don't see how anyone is putting unacceptable content on it. I save all my xbox files on my hard drive, and even if I put everything on the cloud, it would just be a bunch of savegame files and trailers.

edited 3rd Nov '12 8:40:59 PM by Barkey

Skydrive (the 'cloud' as it were) is supposed to be for everything. Only you have to agree to MS's Terms of Service. Since MS wants your Live account, Xbox etc.. integrated one misstep and you end up with nothing.

It isn't missteps on the part of the consumer that worries me. It is Microsoft so tightly integrating everything. All it takes is one really good hacker collective to be attracted to all that data linked together and the whole house of cards will collapse.

The reason I'm p.o.'d is Fridge Logic. What other nasty surprises did Microsoft bundle in as features? Will they block 3rd party apps? Will open software not work? The next SOPA/PIPA...will they reach into your computer and delete stuff?

As soon as that happens I will learn linux even if it kills me.

Wait. They're forcing you to use the cloud? *RAGES*

Don't worry. Linux isn't too difficult to use, especially if you go for something user-friendly like Mint or Ubuntu. I've done everything I could to make the interface as much like Win7 as I could and I think I've done a pretty good job of it.

Re that skydrive thing: Apparently, it's not just Skydrive, but all of Windows Live which is covered by this; which means all the content banned (including links thereto) on Skydrive is also banned on Messenger... or hotmail.

edited 4th Nov '12 6:07:05 AM by Medinoc

Pretty sure you're not force to use the cloud— you can still use Dropbox just as easily. I'm on Win7 and I hadn't even heard of Skydrive until this thread.

I hope they don't force you to use the cloud. I have no clue how a cloud even works. Is it like Google Docs? And I bet that most Windows users don't either.

Well, "cloud" is just a faddish term for "stored/hosted remotely." So yeah, basically just like Google Drive/Docs storage.

What's the difference between "cloud" and "dropbox"? Who hosts the storage?

Dropbox is cloud storage. It's a rectangle vs square difference.

So it's another one of those things that assumes you have a constant, decent internment connection. Great.

Eeyup.

Dropbox is a particular service that makes use of cloud technology to store things remotely. If you have a consistent internet connection, anything you put into a particular Dropbox folder on your computer gets automatically uploaded to your storage space on their servers, and then synchronized with identical Dropbox folders on any other computers you may have, and you can retrieve them via the Internet wherever you are. If you don't have a consistent Internet connection, it only happens when you do, or when you tell it to.

edited 4th Nov '12 10:55:05 AM by Chalkos

I'd never heard of Sky Drive until this, and I use Hotmail, my Xbox 360, and a few games that require LIVE to be signed in to play online.

Haven't felt oppressed by any of that or forced to use any sort of cloud solution.

Then again I know a bit about computers, so I'm just not terribly worried, as I'm extremely aware of what runs in the background on my machine.

I just want a choice. My new laptop came with MS Office and it installed a drive with the letter Q. That was supposed to be Skydrive. Damn thing kept messing with software installs. I uninstalled MS Office and my laptop runs faster and the Q drive is gone.

My quicklaunch toolbar was taken away, 64 bit windows has broken several apps I like and now Windows 8 may usher in a "Walled Garden" approach. The fear is that MS will move to apps that can only come from (or be approved by) Microsoft. Bye bye shareware (remember, Microsoft kept SCO alive in hopes that their lawsuits would ruin Linux).

I hate having to rip into the computer I paid for to get it to work. I don't mind tinkering, I hate having to uninstall the crapware (from vendors), bloatware (standard on most OEM machines) and having features turned off without my consent.

And I don't want a touchscreen monitor. Too much money and I'm happy with my keyboard and mouse.

And I'm calling it, Microsoft will be caught snooping on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA and will try to block shareware generated files from Skydrive.

edited 4th Nov '12 3:21:00 PM by TairaMai

I think Metro will be appealing to classroom presentations anyway. I could see having everything fullscreen, no popup notifications, other stuff be appealing to teachers who I've found find Windows fumbly for it. (Popups appearing all the time, confusion over what window is what.....)

A lot of the things in TOS rules are there out of companies' fear of bad press. We have muck-raking gutter journalism out there, and with the Internet it gets way more exposure than it used to. Fact is, services get blamed and shamed for the actions of their users, even though they are not responsible for those users at all.

MS is terrified of their services getting a reputation for being a "haven for disgusting pornography" or "the new meeting place of pedophiles" or whatever — things companies have been blamed for before with serious impacts on their services. There are way too many people who will take those reports at face value and do things like forbid their kids from using those services.

It fucking sucks, but at the same time I understand the paranoia.

I'm still curious as to what Taira is talking about with Skydrive and such. I work with microsoft software and hardware of just about every stripe, and I've never seen all this proprietary stuff.

Once again though, gonna recommend either whiteboxing a desktop so you don't have to deal with that shit, or just getting a laptop with windows 7 on Newegg or Tiger Direct. As I mentioned, there are always options, just like there are always excuses as to why those options won't work, and not all those excuses are valid.

I mean seriously, if anyone has an IT question on "Hey I need to buy X" tell me. I can find out where and for how much, or what your budget is for something like that. It is always out there.

In addition to what Chalkos said about Dropbox here, you can also upload directly to the web through the dropbox website without having the software installed on the uploading computer, and later retrieve a local copy for your personal computer when desired.

That's enough Off-topicness for this thread, though.

Regarding cloud storage (last off-topic on this topic I swear), I know that Google Docs can be setup (or it might be setup by default, I forget) to mirror the server-side storage on your machine's hard drive. So you lose your internet connection? No big, you still have all the documents in a folder on your disk. Make your changes, add a few file, whatever, and the next time you are back on the grid, your computer updates the server-side storage with your chanes. I think sometimes you will have a problem if you change the same file on two different machines, causing a version conflict though.

And i bet it'll work the same way in Windows 8! See how I wrangled this back on topic sorta?