NEWS ANALYSIS: The business community of Windows users is stuck between a rock and a hard place with Windows, what with XP gone and Windows 7 fading. Probably the best news about Windows 8.1 these days is that you dont have to use it. Microsoft, having seen how disappointed its corporate users are about Windows 8, has relented from last years stance, and is allowing computer vendors to continue installing Windows 7 on new machines. This is a good thing because, otherwise, Windows 8.1 was well on its way to convincing corporate America that switching to Macs or Linux machines was the only choice. In fact, I keep wondering if one major reason for the resurgence of Apple is actually because Microsoft had fallen so far out of touch with what corporate users needed. Lets face it, office users have a variety of desktop and laptop computers, few of which have touch-screens. They need an interface thats friendly to mouse and keyboard users. Windows 8 and 8.1 are strongly aimed at touch-screens. Fortunately, Microsoft will be announcing the availability of Windows 9 at the end of September, with a preview version apparently available soon after that. Apparently the new OS will be released to an unsuspecting public sometime in the spring of 2015. This is good news, although better news would be if Windows 9 (also known as Threshold) were already available. Unfortunately, its not. In fact, some of the promised upgrades that were intended to make Windows 8.1 more palatable to corporate users have apparently been scuttled. Worse, the few that remained in the pipeline are apparently on hold as Microsoft cancels the planned August update after widespread quality issues. Whats worse is that the cancelled update to 8.1 still shows up on some Windows Update screens, but then fails to download and install. The current Windows Update glitch is so bad that despite hours on the phone with engineers, Microsofts support staff finally gave up and suggested that the only solution is to reinstall Windows 8.1. I still havent found out a good way to install Windows 8.1 on a Surface tablet that came with Windows 8. The reason this situation is so scary to enterprise IT managers is that an unstable update or, worse, one that fails, is worse than no update at all. When an update gets stuck in a failure mode such as the ones that seem to affect Windows 8.1, you cant really do anything with the computer. Adding to the frustration, Microsoft has made its most recent update to Windows so that its mandatory, meaning that you cant get any other updates including security updates, until its installed. Now, suppose that the same is true with Windows 9? Suppose you download the new software and find that some or all of your machines wont work with the update, that Microsoft has no easy solution, and that youre basically out of luck. The one bright spot may be that if youre careful with updates, youll have tried out the Windows 9 software on only a few machines first, and youll know that it wont work in advance. But if the update becomes mandatory, what then? - See more at: eweek/pc-hardware/windows-9-is-badly-needed-assuming-it-actually-works.html?kc=EWKNLNAV08262014STR1&dni=159503032&rni=64235495#sthash.S6BCaBbJ.dpuf
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 15:32:12 +0000
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