Microsoft Windows 8.1

I've recently purchased a brand new DELL PC and it came pre-installed with Microsoft's latest Windows 8.1 OS.

You can read about my DELL purchase:  Read post here

In this post, I'm going to rant about my new experience with Windows 8.1 that was forced down my throat.

First, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not a big fan of Microsoft or most of it's products.  So this post is definitely biased.

When I purchased my new PC, given a choice, I would have loved to have Windows XP installed on it.  I believe that Windows XP is the most stable of all Windows products and probably one of the simplest to use.

Unfortunately this was not possible.  Microsoft is muscling its clients, such as DELL to force it's crap down customers throats.  So I became a victim of a government enforced monopoly of the OS market.

OS Configuration

The day I received my PC, I first turned it on.  Having purchased a brand new laptop, a few years back, with Windows Vista on it, I knew that I would be asked a few basic questions such as my preferred OS language, name and username, etc.

But when I booted my Windows 8.1 PC, I was horrified by the questions that Microsoft was asking me.

They were asking for my name, age, gender, etc.  It's not like you could simply skip those questions either.  How could they be legally be allowed to do this?  I'm configuring an OS for gods sake, why would they need to know my gender?

Microsoft Account

And things even became worst when Microsoft was asking me for a Microsoft account in order to sign into my PC.  WTF?  PC means "Personal Computer", so what does Microsoft NOT understand about "personal"?  Why would I be forced to have a remote account linked to my OS?

Worst part is that I feel like I'm being "monitored" every time I log on to my PC.  I've tried to find a way to revert this back to a normal username/password configuration but it doesn't seem to work.

What Microsoft has done in Windows 8.1 should be totally illegal by all standards!

Desktop

I got my first introduction to the wildly controversial new user interface ... Metro UI I believe they call it.  It isn't enough that Microsoft created havoc with the Ribbon UI, now they were spreading the plague across the OS as well.

It's not the design that is so bad, it's just the fact that it doesn't seem flexible or configurable.  I'm computer literate and working with Microsoft's products seem close to impossible.

So I did what most people did.  I searched for a few third-party desktop add-on and experimented with them.  My choice easily became Pokki Start Menu.  My Windows experience is getting back to what I expect it to be now and not what Microsoft wants it to be.

Software Incompatibility

But what is catastrophic about the Windows 8.1 OS, is not the little details that were mentioned above.  It's not about the colors, the UI or the user experience (UX).  To me, compatibility is crucial.  

I can accept software or devices not being compatible when innovation is such an advantage that incompatibility is acceptable.

But one thing I quickly realized with Windows 8.1 was that many of my old software and games no longer worked.  I'm not a gamer whatsoever.  But I do have some very, very old games which I love to play a few times per year.  None of them work now!  That is unacceptable, period!  They worked on Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and every Windows in between.  So why the hell would they simply not work in Windows 8.1?

Hardware Incompatibility

If only the incompatibility was limited to software.  Most frustrating of all is that I have several USB devices, such as two Cannon scanners that no longer work.  That's correct, two scanners which I depend on... NO LONGER WORK!

I install the Cannon software and drivers.  When I load the software, nothing is detected, nothing works.  When I conduct a Google search (screw you BING), I seem to get thousands upon thousands of other cases similar to mine.

How can a USB device, abstracted through layers and layers of protocols no longer work?  I get a sense that this is intentional.  I get a feeling that Windows 8.1 was designed for legacy software/hardware obsolescence.

Note that Cannon is also to blame here.  Why wouldn't they provide a new Windows 8.1 driver for their devices?

Do Microsoft and Cannon expect millions of people to simply throw away their devices and go buy new ones?  What kind of lunatic technical world do we live in?  Don't companies such as Microsoft and Cannon have a certain level of integrity?

It would seem not!  You are a puppet and they are the puppet masters!

Chrome OS Paranoya?

In his recent post entitled Intel and AMD threatended by Chrome OS, Charlie Demerjian shows quite a bit of premature enthusiasm.

Not to say that Google's latest product announcement -- Chrome OS -- won't be a great product, but I think our SemiAccurate author is, well not too accurate in his past history and predictions.

Intel has been facing stiff competition from RISC processors for decades (yes, I know Intel is RISC at the core). Many predicted Intel's demise too many times... and all have been proven quite silly.

AMD and Intel are going down the SoC road. This is where the true value is! No other company on earth right now can integrate more into a SoC than Intel and AMD... and it gets better each year. Sure ARM has a very small thermal footprint, but what else do you get?

Along comes Google and says, in effect, "You can do everything you need to on the net with our widget that uses only 1/4 the CPU power of a Windows machine, 1/4 the RAM, half the storage space, and we consume 1/2 the wattage". Compelling argument.

Or is it? What about the fact that it will have about 1/20th of the applications! Are you going to try and convince me that Linux apps are equivalent to Windows? Believe me, I sure wish they would be, cause I'm an Open Source fanatic and have been using Linux as my OS of choice since 1995. But no matter how much I've tried to introduce OpenOffice to a few secretaries and receptionists, Firefox on Gnome to friends and families, or just about any other open source application compiled for Windows, I pretty much get the same feedback! What is this!?

People have been accustomed to using Windows OS, applications and tools. And people like to stick with what they know.

Want proof? That's easy, just ask yourself where is Linux in the world today if you exclude all the Linux systems that run as a server and installed by geeks. The answer is practically nowhere! My point proven. And this is the reason why x86 is here to stay... and lead the way.

Even if there was a sudden movement where companies started porting their applications to a non-x86 architecture, it would take over a decade. Let's not even talk about the cost of all this.

Would you rather have a $1000 notebook with a 4 hour battery life that runs a few more apps, or a $200 Chromebook that has a 24 hour battery life? Apps compatibility isn't going to be much of a problem, Google has the clout to twist arms and the financial might to spend what is needed.

To get 24 hours of battery life, you'd be running a notebook with embedded graphics with the processing power equivalent to a decade ago. And who's going to sell you these chips? Apple? Nvidia? AMD's and Intel's will be embedded into their SoC and be twice as fast as the latest discrete GPU! Can an ARM chip match that?

But only time will tell. My bet is NOT on an ARM dominated industry!

But I do agree with one statement that you've made:

MS has an uphill slog for sales, and lacks a plan B. It has the stick, but no carrot, and not enough time to grow a few. MS is on the way down, fast.

And I'd like to point out that I've very happy to hear Google will compete with Windows. What the Linux world needed really bad in order to make it into the desktop world was credibility and support. Google will be able to bring that with force.