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Uncategorized Friday, November 30th 2012 at 5:10 pm

Microsoft Disappointed by Windows 8 Sales, Public Disappointed by Windows 8

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Microsoft had pretty high hopes for Windows 8 when it was released last month. Although the stated number of 40 million licenses sold sounds impressive, it reportedly falls below what Microsoft was projecting. They’re putting on a brave front by saying upgrades to Windows 8 are outpacing those to Windows 7, but Microsoft is allegedly blaming the makers of Windows 8 PCs for an “inability to deliver.” Microsoft shouldn’t blame manufacturers for Windows 8′s poor adoption, they should blame Windows 8.

A few factors could be responsible for the tepid market response to Windows 8, and I’ll try not to dwell too much on the fact that it’s terrible. I just purchased a laptop with Windows 8 installed and have been trying to use it for a few days now. I’ve got to say, it’s a mess. I’m a long time Mac user, but occasionally have to use Windows 7 for various reasons. Windows is not a completely foreign environment to me, but nothing about Windows 8 feels useful or intuitive.

Windows 7 could also be part of the problem Windows 8 is having with sales. If customers are already happy with Windows 7, then they might not be looking to upgrade just yet. Other factors could include things like the poor economy, a pre-holiday shopping release date, or the fact that Windows 8 is spread out on a wide variety of devices.

One other factor that might be holding people back is how hard Microsoft is pushing the touch features of Windows 8. If they make it seem that Windows 8 is centered around a touchscreen interface then people might be scared off from upgrading to Windows 8 on their computers that don’t have touchscreens. The laptop I just bought has a touchscreen as a matter of coincidence rather than by choice, but I imagine trying to navigate through the tiled interface of the new Start Menu would be frustrating with a mouse or trackpad.

Perhaps users are waiting to get a better understanding of what Windows 8 is before they upgrade, or maybe, like me, they will just have it thrust upon them the next time they upgrade their hardware.

(via Supersite for Windows, image via Michael Kappel)

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  • Stan

    Windows 8 is a nightmare on a laptop for my wife. Am having a friend build an XP desktop for $175 for her to use. Am taking the Win 8 back for credit.

  • Kei

    “I’m a long time Mac user” Well there ya go, your reasons ane now null. Windows 8 is still bad though.

  • dave

    I had windows 8 installed for all of an hour and a half…. Took that long 2 find my windows 7 disk :-)

  • steve

    I still cannot understand what Microsoft were thinking. They released a Operating System that requires a touch screen when most home PC’s don’t have touch screens. Besides even if I did have a touch screen I’d still use the mouse because I like to chill back in my chair, not lean forward everytime I need to do something. Monitors are supposed to be at least an arms length away from you… I don’t want a touch screen monitor shoved in my face.

    I’d probably have upgraded if they’d have improved on the windows 7 UI for mouse users, instead it seems to have been an after thought for Microsoft.

    I work in the tech industry and Human Computer Interaction is at the center of my job, if I released a product without researching what my customers need and want I’d likely be sacked

  • dave

    Plus…. As silly as it is I want a start button…. Native…. Not 3rd party..

  • llr

    Well, i think win8 is a nice upgrade, it’s faster and once you’re used to the new interface (having programmed some extra buttons on your high end mouse) it’s a realy nice environment. Don’t shoot the sherrif :)

  • Anon

    I love Windows 8. Makes everything faster.

  • warisfun

    SO brave

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jack-N-Fran-Farrell/100002337622505 Jack N Fran Farrell

    Idiot move to add touch screens to laptops when all people want is a laptop that can ‘read my lips’ and do what I say about fixing a presentation or spreadsheet.

  • Fail

    While all of us here in the IT world it comes as no surprise. Seriously Microsoft is so predictable with their OS’s every other one since 95 sucked massive ass.

  • Guy

    I like how “this author dislikes windows 8″ translates to “…public disappointed by windows 8.”

  • Anonymous

    Or the Deputy…

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002291703668 William Marcum

    Honestly, I have no intention to upgrade to windows 8, but having used the public beta crap, there is no reason to upgrade for me. Using the beta I stayed 100 percent in the desktop environment When I wanted to launch a program I hit the windows key and typed the program name, just like I do on Windows 7. Why upgrade? What changed that would make it worth while?

  • Anonymous

    I agree. While Windows 8 makes things in the background faster than Windows 7, things that users actually do (productivity) are hindered by Windows 8, not aided by it. I found a downloadable .iso image of Windows 7 Home Premium, burned it, and just used the Windows OEM tag on the underside of my laptop.

  • Anonymous

    It is not just this author. There is a proven, growing consensus of disappointment in Windows 8.

  • steve

    Liked a few new features but 98% of the time i spent it on the Desktop.Why do i have to go all this tile thing everytime?Still, they are quite fast and very developer-friendly.will keep and develop for them.

  • Alchemical Magician

    There’s an old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”…..this happens when a company tries to do unnecessary changes to a product that was fine.

  • Rainer

    I’m a fan of Win7, but like others have said, 8 is a mess. The app launcher overlay is just pointless…I can see it being useful on a touch screen, but let us turn it off and have a start button.. The start button was a brilliant addition to Windows. MS: Please innovate, but don’t forget you’re making an OS to be functional on a PC, not a tablet. We still use a mouse to get around.

  • Anonymous

    I purchased my first laptop, which had Windows 8 installed. I returned it the next day.

  • Ben Around

    Yes, if you already have a bad machine. My boot time in Windows 8 is slower than my Win 7 image.

  • Ben Around

    So I take it they put type to open program back in? Oh, never mind, they didn’t.

  • Ben Around

    100% Agree. While there are a lot of nice things they did to the Windows Kernal, they shot themselves when they decided to do god knows what with the UI.

  • shonangreg

    I was advising a non-technical friend today about getting a new notebook PC. He wasn’t sure of much, but when I mentioned that he should avoid Windows 8 unless he had looked closely at it and knew what he would be in for, he replied by saying that he already knows to avoid Windows 8.

    I know this incident is anecdotal, but the word is out: Windows 8 sucks. Even non-geeks know this now.

  • Anonymous

    Microsoft is like a huge super tanker, drifting ruderless in the ocean and watching with envy as the H.M.S. Apple and H.M.S Android go steaming past in their fancy new liners. I hope she can recover because there was a time she was the pride of the sea. Needs her old captain back -not captain bungle ballmer.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1556833482 Dave Cruikshank

    Bingo. I love Windows 8.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1556833482 Dave Cruikshank

    There has to be a way to migrate to cloud based arena/Win8 apps. Eventually you’ll start to spend more time in tiled world and desktop app will fade away. Why is this so hard to grasp?????

  • mkddre

    Nothing but a …you Win types call it tiles..I call it billboards..loaded games that would load with 7 and NO, what you want to do is take customers to games bought by greedy Win instead of making it easy…I sold my Microsoft shares based upon this greed/stupidity.

  • V.H.

    I tried to introduce winows 8 to my company. ( I will tell right away – i bought the start button for $4 – day 1). WIthout Start button – EVERYBODY hated it. Should I continue? I am not talking about my own problems with vSphere and 16 incompatible programs right away – making me at the end switch to MAC in the end.

  • V.H.

    I love it too. When it doesn’t make all decisions for me. My nephew returned a new laptop back to the store because he didn’t figure out how to use this nonsense for school!

  • Anonymous

    MS lost a decade after xp. The new kernel is still a security nightmare, old viruses runs like a charm, UAC is more an annoyance to users and developers (come on, it is not even integrated with file and users related api!), the whole thing was only to add Aero in Vista, make it less ugly in 7, remove it in 8, and bury the desktop under an amateurish desktop/notification replacement as Stardock could have written better in one month.
    So hyped performance boosts were simply stopping useless services and whastes, but does not even close to older Windows generation, nor to competing mobile systems, offering no compelling reason to chose ms anymore.
    In the meantime Apple went from Classic to Osx and iOs, Linux is on most servers and appliances and spawned Android which rules phones.
    Wake up Ms, you don’t have another decade to waste!

  • thunderdark

    I was dissapointed at windows 8, i think microsoft should be dissapointed at what they’ve done. and i think they should return it to how it used to be, or add the option to do so. Terrible

  • Nerd…

    Windows 8 is an absolute peice of Crap. I cant believe that Microsoft would take a perfect O.S. and turn it into something that would come out of a cows backside. i am now writing this on my Re-Installed Windows 7.

  • artsmonster

    I tried it, HATE it beyond explaination. Wiped it and installed 7 again. Why make it so hard, so many additional steps, so user unfriendly I don’t get! So many additional steps to get to what you want to do, wasted time for nothing! Dump this trash and go back to an easier format. It isn’t Christmas, nor any other excuse. It just SUCKS!

  • TC23

    It’s hard to believe that MS could release anything worse than Vista, but they did. They spent too much time dumbing down the UI to give it more of an Apple iOS/Android feel and completely lost focus on what worked in Windows 7. The result is a bastardized mess of tiles, graphics and pop up/down/sideways menus that make no sense at all. This really is terrible!

  • Jojo

    Been using win-8 for couple weeks now (work computer) usuability is terrible. It’s just not very efficient or ideal to navigate around multiple folders, files,browsers, browser tabs…and prob etc… And whats up with the hypersentive “hot corners”, cuase irratic behavior.

    If I should buy a home computer again, I will go back to Mac. Keeping desktop and mobile OS fundamentally separate is the way to go. Not only that but the Mac ecosystem is super nice. Apple’s cloud infrastructure and design is well thought out and runs smooth as milk. Win 7 is “good” but it’s obvious now that it won’t evolve as OSX will due to win-8 being Microsoft’s flagship OS.

  • jaffea

    my computer got really screwed up and microsoft couldnt help me to remove windows 8, i had to go back to factory settings to get my computer going. i still havenot received my refund (december 10 request made).

  • Ishmael

    40 million doesn’t mean squat when you consider it is the only operating system on the shelf. If XP were available, people would be buying that.
    Win 8 is nearly useless. I can’t wait for the recall and class action suit.
    As soon as government agencies and the financial community is forced to move to win 8, the world will surely stop.

  • Microsoft Pete

    Puff Puff Pass

  • http://twitter.com/fivish Fivish

    I bought a new ultrabook the week before W8 came out. I installed w8 to see what it was about. 4 hours to put it on then 10 hours to put 7 and all my programs back on. Oh how i loath W8! It looks like a Fisher Price toy computer. It offers nothing worth having and is soo unintuitive. What were MS thinking who signed off on this crap?

  • codecaine

    lol

  • Anonymous

    Bought a new laptop for the family this Christmas and it had Win8 on it. I can definitely confirm that Win8 is indeed a steaming pile of goat s–t. It would have been nicer to give my family coal instead of the suffering Win8 has inflicted upon them. Its an operating system clearly designed for Facebook kiddies who require constant access to their Twitter feeds or they will shrivel up and die from loneliness. Meanwhile power users who require productivity over spending their day playing Farmville are left standing out in the cold. I would also like to take this opportunity to apologize to all the Ubuntu developers who I condemned to the deepest depths of heII for their ploy to jam a touchscreen tablet OS down the throats of unsuspecting desktop users. I apologize. Compared to Win8 your OS is a Godly effort. Win7 + Mint dual boot is where its at. Going to cling to those two for dear life while I figure out the most environmental friendly way to dispose of this toxic waste that is Win8.

  • http://www.facebook.com/josephfelicewilson Joseph Wilson

    They went backwards from Windows 8 to Windows 7. Anyone who tried the Beta knew this OS was terrible. I don’t understand how Bill Gates or anyone with a triple IQ thought this OS was anything special.

  • leicaman

    When I beta tested it I sent MS plenty of comments, mainly centering on the lack of the start button. I help lots of older folks with their computers and lots of them would totally wank out if they had something as confusing as this.

  • ravenNash

    I guess the new users never worked on windows before, and want to just browse internet and have a touch screen system, will love it, but professionals who loved XP and upgraded to win 7 will get irritated but its over user friendliness . Over all Win 8 sucked for me, why they hack i upgraded :( , i am uninstalling it right now.

  • ravenNash

    same here.

  • ravenNash

    Android usability much better then win 8

  • Chad

    Well, you cannot take a turd and make it a diamond! Windows Vista = Flop, Windows 7 at least is manageable and half stable, but this Windows 8 crap immediately took upgrading windows off the table and now looking at MAC. At least MAC is stable and don’t jack people around. Windows 9 release will be some stupid crap where everyone will have to buy a samn touchscreen.

  • Jml

    Yes Windows 8 is a PIECE OF DOG SHIT!!! Windows 7 was almost perfect for High end gaming but M$ doesn’t care about that right now they care about getting more phone/tablet market-share.

  • Jml

    We all know that’s NOT going to happen because M$ thinks Metro is good and start button is bad which we all know is not true but M$ doesn’t like to admit defeat.

  • Jml

    Because M$ has apple envy and wants to be like apple with its billions of dollars in cold hard cash. This envy will be the death of M$ as Linux in time will take over as the high-end gaming OS.

  • Jml

    BURN IT!!! BURN WINDOWS 8 BURN!!!!

  • Jml

    Congrats you must an IDIOT FROM ANOTHER PLANET!!!

  • Jml

    Yep that’s right Windows 9 will be all touch all the time and it will suck even more than M$ Windows 8.

  • drew

    I understand they were looking, hoping, for a future where they could dominate with the first fully functional touchscreen OS but really missed the mark.

    The fullscreen apps, however, are lame regardless of whether or not you have a touchscreen. I better not ever have to wait 20 seconds for an Android sized app to load on a quad core Xeon..

    Can’t say i’m surprised- this is the microsoft pattern “over-reach with a bunch of new ideas, get panned and then go back and fix everything to make an actual usable OS” The joke’s on me for wanting to snatch a bargain and scooping up 2 reeking copies of this fetid mess.

    Just change the name Microsoft- we all know what this really is: Vista 2.0.

  • C’mon man

    Windows 8 totally sucks. After 20 years you would think Microsoft would get it right. Apple has them beat hands down.

  • Chaz

    Window 8 sucks big time, I went through 3 new laptops with 8 installed and they all crashed and sucked so bad I gave up. Reminds me of Vista which I also hated and put XP on my old machine that is still running 8 years later.

  • Anonymous

    Microsoft should have done what Apple did and separated tablet OS from PC OS. This ideal of making everyone adopt something just for the sake of tablets is rediculous. A one size fits all approach was Microsoft’s downfall with Windows 8.

  • http://twitter.com/christophla Christophla

    It’s junk.

  • Twade

    Returning my Windows 8 tomorrow. Touch pad sucks, it does not support iSQL or Oracle in which I work with it, trying to navigate the menu is messy and yes I like mac. This is just a huge disappointment. Faster system, but it takes me hours to find anything. Search is only of it is an app. Getting a Windows 7…

  • Sierra Fox

    Worst operating system ever. What crack addled brains at Microsoft thought this crap up? Several “someones” deserve to be fired, and banished from the industry for this. I’m actually going back to Windows 7 to wait this one out. If they don’t fix this, I’ll go to Linux. My wife was making fun of all the cussing coming from the computer area until she tried it herself, the she actually apologized saying no wonder you have been upset, this sucks.

  • Luniz LEE

    M$ lost its way in modern operation system market. It kills users’ experiences to adapted in pad system market and it makes a really, really terrible job that more traditional PC users would abanden window$ before those new users increasing.

  • http://www.facebook.com/UncleXNL Remi van Dongen

    Windows 8 Sucks, After installing a couple of apps on my PC. I have all these apps in the tiles screen and I have to go look for the apps, before I can start an app. I can’t even make a folder on the tiles screen, so that finding apps is easier. (For example all office icons in the office folder, it can’t be done!!)
    I could have made someting better then the tiles screen of Windows 8 in a week. (I’m C# Programmer)
    It looks like it has been programmed by an infant that has absolutely no concept of GUI design…..
    I can understand people are not putting efford in programming for the tiles, if Microsoft drops this feature in a next version all your hard work is gone….
    My opinion Windows 8 is not too bad a first attempt.
    But they do have to make folders for that tiles screen!!!!
    How am I expected to browse 500 applications before finding one every time????

  • TW

    Microsoft has thrown me “under the bus,” as a desktop user. I have been a Windows supporter since day one. I have argued “why” it is better than Apple with friends a minimum of 1,000 times. I want a “desktop experience,” and I am not a touch screen fan. I just bought a new Dell several months ago with Windows 7. When this PC runs its course, it will be my last Windows based PC. I am switching whole-heartedly to Mac. I have no choice but to switch. It is a sad day for me, as a user who loves my mouse. BYE-BYE Microsoft!

  • Boots

    Just look at the comments here. About 99% are by people (the public) who dislike Windows 8.

  • Boots

    Vista accidentally sucked. Windows 8 has been designed to suck.

  • Lars ‘Ebi’ Nielsen

    Every other Windows starting with Windows ME has been crap. Windows 8 is one of the those crappy ones, but I’m really curious to see where we go with Windows 9 in a few years, maybe they’ll have gotten it right by then. I avoid every other version because I don’t want to pay to be their testers.

  • Lars ‘Ebi’ Nielsen

    You could get linux if you don’t need some software that you can’t get a replacement for.

  • Markus

    After a month of Windows 8 Pro I am happy to report that I have formatted my drive and reloaded windows 7 and am working once again at speed without all the lollipop crapness of windows 8 which has been about as much loved as Windows Millenium was here in Australia.. goodbye to 4x clicks to close goodbye to extra flash screens that are simply in the way goodbye to the idiot that designed the GUI and goodbye to the gayest OS I have ever had the displeasure of using and coming form a gay guy thats really saying something. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  • Xextreem

    Use it for mmm 3 days after that I format my c: drive and install windows 7 back to it. Fuck windows 8 I give it a fear chance and what I get was mess frustration and pointless tools I don’t need on my desktop. I hope the will make 9 like xp and 7 combine

  • Nobody777

    Windows 8 certainly has a handful of positives… but I still can’t stand it. It is not only lousy because it doesn’t function like Windows 7 (ahem, no Start button), but it’s flat out UGLY! I hate the whole boxy design of Metro. It’s UGLY! Windows 7 had the aero glass which was slick, but it’s like they are going back to Windows 95 days or something. Seriously, how can anyone think this interface is the least bit attractive? I absolutely hate it. And who in the world actually uses a touch screen monitor with their desktop computer? Again, stupid idea. I have a phone and tablet for that. And what’s with 2 Internet Explorers? The one on Metro is absolutely stupid and useless… I never liked IE anyway, now I have just one more reason to hate it.

    I really do like Windows (7 is my favorite). I just don’t get what Microsoft was thinking…. Do they actually know people who use their computers?… If it’s not broke, don’t fix it! Most of us love Windows 7 (and there’s quite a few that still really like XP).

    Windows 8 is a big thumbs down and that’s what I’m hearing from everyone I know! From my friends who use Desktop PCs to the tech guy that manages our office’s network, it’s lousy! It’s not going to be a success! They aren’t going to win the Tablet and Phone market either because Android and Apple are already killing there. Even Bill Gates admitted on TV that Microsoft lost the phone battle.

    On the positive, Windows 8 is tolerable when addons are used that bring back the look and feel of 7. If you’re stuck with 8 and you HATE, then try StartIsBack. It’s only $3 bucks after a 30-day trial. It’s awesome.